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Beaujolais Nouveau Est Arrivé! 2016 Edition
There is no shortage of the grape holidays nowadays – we celebrate Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Tempranillo, Chardonnay and many other grapes, sometimes even two per day. However, the oldest grape celebration in existence is Beaujolais Nouveau Day, celebrated on the third Thursday in November, which happened to be November 17th this year.
Of course, Beaujolais Nouveau Day is not so much of a grape celebration (which would be a Gamay day) but really the celebration of the new harvest, which was a very old tradition in the Beaujolais region, neighboring Burgundy, in France. Georges Duboeuf, a famous French wine merchant, is credited with making Beaujolais Nouveau Day an international event more than 30 years ago. What was just a local harvest festival became an international event, widely anticipated and celebrated around the world, from Tokyo to Moscow to New York.
While Beaujolais Nouveau Day is [still] often dismissed as a marketing gimmick, I'm always looking forward trying the new Beaujolais Nouveau wines, to be able to see their evolution. Ever since this blog started in 2010, Beaujolais Nouveau was always part of it – here you can find the old posts from 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. In case you want to learn a bit more about the history of the celebration, please take a look at the post from 2012 – it contains more information than the other posts.
Here are the notes on the 2 wines I was able to taste this year:
2016 Georges Dubœuf Beaujolais Nouveau (12% ABV, $9.99)
C: Dark ruby
N: fresh fruit, intense, ripe raspberries, herbal undertones, not over the top
P: elegant, fresh, red fruit notes, crunchy berries, excellent acidity
V: 8-, very enjoyable and elegant
2016 Paul Durdilly et Fils "Les Grandes Coasses" Beaujolais Nouveau (12.5% ABV, $9.99)
C: dark ruby
N: spicy cherries, mint, inviting
P: very limited amount of fruit, big contrast with the nose. For the Beaujolais Nouveau, might be even too restrained.
V: 7, leaving desiring more on the palate.
Talking about the two wines I tasted, I have to admit that I forgot to lightly chill them, which is recommended. This definitely had no effect on Georges Duboeuf wine, but it might be a culprit behind the limited expression of the second wine.
Before we part, I want to bring to your attention the label of the Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau. Besides the fact that I personally like it, the important part if that for the first time ever, the label for this wine was chosen by the wine consumers voting for one of the 12 different designs submitted for the competition. I think the consumers chosen well, right?
For the past 3-4 years, I find Beaujolais Nouveau a very enjoyable wine, well worthy of oenophile's attention. What do you think of Beaujolais Nouveau? Any favorites? Cheers!
Month in Wines – November 2015
November 2015 was an interesting month. On one side, I traveled intensely throughout the month, which definitely affected memorable wine encounters. At the same time, this month brought some very unique highlights, such as Chinese wine and a full range of Beaujolais Nouveau wines (never before I tasted 5 Beaujolais Nouveau in the row). And I can't help myself – I really love the labels on some of the Beaujolais Nouveau wines – festive and uplifting:
Here is what was "wine-interesting" in November 2015:
1421 Gold Chardonnay Xinjiang China – sorry, no idea about ABV or a price – very nice and classic in its Chardonnay profile, good apple and lemon notes, well rounded. 8-
2010 Tolaini Al Passo Toscana IGT (13.5% ABV, $20? – don't know Costco price, Merlot/Sangiovese blend) – nicely restrained, unmistakably Italian, good taste profile, soft tannins, good acidity, good structure. 8-
2012 Penfolds Kalimna Shiraz Bin 28 South Australia (14.5% ABV, $28) – tar and tobacco on the nose, dark fruit, dark chocolate. Tobacco and pencil shavings on the palate, good fruit, good acidity, perfect balance. 8-
2011 Turley Estate Zinfandel Napa Valley (15.6% ABV, $38) – delicious nose of ripe raspberries with a touch of tobacco, a classic Zin. Soft and delicious on the palate, perfect balance, fresh fruit, dark chocolate, hint of smoke, perfect balance. An excellent wine. 8
Changyu Red Wine Blend Ningxia, China (ABV?, about $33 at a restaurant) – definitely a highlight – spot on Bordeaux taste profile, round and balanced. 8/8+
2005 Bernard Magrez Temperancia Toro, Spain (15% ABV, $11.99 WTSO price) – I got this wine earlier in the year from the Wine Til Sold Out (WTSO). It has a delicious dense core, with dark fruit and espresso. Full bodied and perfectly well integrated. 8-
2012 Casey Flat Ranch Open Range Proprietary Red, California (14.8% ABV, $9.99, Blend: 52% Syrah, 33% Petite Sirah, 8% Merlot, 5% Mourvedre, 2% Cabernet Franc) – concentrated dark fruit, plums, dark chocolate, touch of cinnamon and a touch of tar. Scrumptiously together. 8-
2006 Monasterio De Las Viñas Reserva Cariñena DO ($15?, Garnacha 70%, Tempranillo 20%, Cariñena 10%) – out of all places, had it at hotel in Korea, and it was outstanding – firm, well structured, medium to full bodied, lavender and plums on the palate, perfect balance. 8
2015 Georges Dubœuf Beaujolais Nouveau (13% ABV, $10.99) – exceeding expectations. A new height for Beaujolais Nouveau. 8-
2015 Joseph Drouhin Beaujolais Nouveau (13% ABV, $11.99) – a solid effort. 7/7+
2015 Domaine Dupeuble Beaujolais Nouveau (13% ABV, $13.99) – rivaling Dubœuf with may be even slight edge up. Would never identify as Beaujolais Nouveau in a blind tasting. 8-/8
2015 Mommessin Beaujolais Nouveau (11%–14% ABV, $10.99) – Classic Beaujolais Nouveau. Enough said. 7+
2015 Bouchard Beaujolais Nouveau (11%–14% ABV, $9.99) – see above. 7+
And we are done here. Did you have any of the wines I'm talking about here? What were your recent wine highlights? Cheers!
Beaujolais Nouveau Est Arrivé! 2015 Edition
Have you looked in the calendar today? Yes, it is the third Thursday of November, which means that … Beaujolais Nouveau has arrived! All the wine stores around you should carry bottles with the festive labels, and there are multiple events and parties to celebrate the arrival of the new wine, the wine of 2015.
I know that many hard core wine drinkers scoff at the Beaujolais Nouveau wine and the whole celebration, considering the wine to be a plonk and the celebration only a marketing gimmick. Speaking for myself, I love to partake in this celebration, as may be the first wine holiday ever created (now we have ever increasing number of "grape days" throughout the year, to make sure we have enough reasons to open a bottle of wine).
Besides just liking the idea of celebration of the first wine of the harvest, I find that quality of the Beaujolais Nouveau is consistently improving, year after year. Thus I happily ran to the store today at the first available opportunity to get some Beaujolais Nouveau. 5–6 years ago Georges Dubœeuf Beaujolais Nouveau was the only option. Few years back, Joseph Drouhin joined the company. This year, I had a choice of 4 wines to pick from, so I decided to limit my tasting to 3.
I don't want to give you any overall impressions until you will skim through the tasting notes, so here we go:
2015 Georges Dubœuf Beaujolais Nouveau (13% ABV, $10.99)
C: Dark Garnet, very unexpected
N: restrained, fresh berries with the touch of herbs. Very different from the previous years, a lot less fruity. More reminiscent of a traditional Beaujolais or a nice Chinon
P: outstanding. Fresh, open, perfectly balanced fruit, ripe cherries, medium body, medium-long finish.
V: 8-, very unexpected, would never guess in the blind tasting that this is a Nouveau wine. Not sure what kind of magic Dubœeuf used, but this is a pretty spectacular wine in its own.
2015 Joseph Drouhin Beaujolais Nouveau (13% ABV, $11.99)
C: dark garnet, another unexpected color
N: more traditional nose of freshly crushed berries, still not overboard, with underpinning of spices
P: delicious young wine, nice fresh fruit, finish mostly acidic
V: 7/7+, more in line with expectations of Beaujolais Nouveau – a very well made one, but still
2015 Domaine Dupeuble Beaujolais Nouveau (13% ABV, $13.99)
C: dark garnet, one more wow
N: restrained, with acidity and minerality been in the lead, touch floral, may a bit of tart cherries
P: excellent, round, more of classic Burgundy in style, not a hint of "nouveau" on the palate, very fresh with a distant hint of smoke and tobacco on the palate.
V: 8-, outstanding. Again a complete surprise.
What can I tell you? Very impressive. Excellent wines, well made and tasty, and offering great QPR for what they are. If you celebrate Thanksgiving, this might be a great addition to your table. And if you don't, Beaujolais Nouveau 2015 is well worth your attention. And if this Beaujolais Nouveau is any indication, the 2015 might be (yet again) the vintage of the century. Beaujolais Nouveau Est Arrivé! À votre santé!
P.S. After this post was written, I tried two more Beaujolais Nouveau wines, so here are the additional notes just to make the 2015 experience more complete:
2015 Mommessin Beaujolais Nouveau (11%–14% ABV, $10.99)
C: Bright Ruby
N: initially a typical Beaujolais Nouveau nose with fresh crushed berries, eventually becoming more restrained with additional herbal component
P: fresh tart cherries, crisp, fresh, with the vibrant acidity which makes the wine show quite complex
V: 7+, well made wine, simple and pleasant
2015 Bouchard Beaujolais Nouveau (11%–14% ABV, $9.99)
C: dark Ruby
N: fresh berries with a touch of green leaves
P: fresh crushed berries, crisp, vibrant, good acidity
V: 7+, traditional Beaujolais Nouveau, simple and tasty
Traditions of Wine
Wednesday's Meritage – An Award for Women in Food, Thanksgiving Wines, Ageing of the Napa Cabs, Screw Top versus Cork and more
Meritage Time!
Abundance is the word today. Thanksgiving, the holiday which we will celebrate tomorrow in United States, is usually associated with abundance. Lots' of food and fun. And so is today's Meritage issue – lots of interesting things to share. Let's go!
First, I want to bring to your attention an opportunity for an award for the deserving women involved with food. KaTom, one of the largest restaurant supply companies in the world, wants to create a special award to recognize women involved with food, and it is asking for your help with this. If you click on this link, you will get to the KaTom web site, where in the upper right corner you will find the link for the video and a special award survey. Watch the 2-minutes video and then take a short survey – this will greatly help KaTom in their quest to create that special award.
Well, it is kind of late, but still worth a few minutes of your time – W. Blake Gray wrote a blog post which might help you to select the right wine for Thanksgiving. Instead of focusing on the particular wines, W. Blake Gray gives you an idea of the broad categories which might fit well at the Thanksgiving table.
Do you like aged wines? Which wines do you think can age well? If you think about California Cabernet Sauvignon wines as age-worthy, you might find interesting this article written by Lettie Teague for the Wall Street Journal. In the article, Lettie is exploring in depth if California Cabernet Sauvignon wines can actually age as well as many of us think they are. I definitely agree with one of the takeaways – it is hard to predict if the particular bottle of wine will age or not. But – I'm willing to take a chance. Anyway, read the article and let me know what do you think.
In the next interesting post, Jamie Goode, one of the very well known wine bloggers and writers, ponders at the [almost eternal] debate of wine enclosures – screw top versus cork. This is not a theoretical debate – Jamie actually is talking about blind tasting and comparing the same wines enclosed with cork and screw top. Based on what I see in the post, cork edges the screw top – but read the comments to see all of the outcry about spoiled, corked wines. As far as I'm concerned, I'm willing to take a risk of having a corked bottle in exchange for greatness, versus screw top which just doesn't allow the wine to age properly – but this is not the popular opinion. Anyway, take a look for yourself.
Which country do you think is a number 1 importer of Beaujolais Nouveau wines? Prepare for the surprise, as this country is … Japan! This article from Decanter magazine is exploring the virtues of the Beaujolais Nouveau phenomenon using some numbers. Japan is the biggest importer of Beaujolais Nouveau – it imports more Beaujolais Nouveau than the next 9 countries combined. Definitely some interesting numbers, well worth your attention.
Last but definitely not the least – here is another nudge regarding the the Monthly Wine Writing Challenge #13. The theme is Serendipity, and you really have to start working on it now, if you didn't have already. No excuses – have some turkey, have some wine, and get to it. Even if you think you can't write the #MWWC post, believe in yourself, just sit down and write – you can do it! For all the rules and regulations, please take a look at this post.
And we are done here. The glass is empty, but the refill is on the way. Cheers!
Celebrating New Harvest – Beaujolais Nouveau 2014
On Thursday, November 20th, all wine (and probably well beyond wine) social media outlets were filled with "Le Beaujolais Nouveau Est Arrivé" messages, pictures and videos. For more than 30 years, what was at some point a simple local celebration of the new harvest, became a big international affair. Always happening on the third Thursday in November, the wine called Beaujolais Nouveau magically appears on the shelves of the wine stores and on the restaurant tables all over the world to ring in the harvest.
This international celebration is largely a result of the efforts of one man with the vision – Georges Duboeuf, the famous french wine négociant and producer. It was his vision and hard work which lead to the event celebrated from Paris to New York to Tokyo. At some point the Beaujolais Nouveau phenomenon became oversubscribed, leading to the glut of insipid wines saturating the market, creating a bad image associated with the whole Beaujolais Nouveau idea. But with the modern winemaking improvements, the quality of the Beaujolais Nouveau wines started to improve year after year, which brought the feeling of the celebration back over the last 5-6 years.
I had been closely following the Beaujolais Nouveau celebration ever since this blog started – here are the posts from 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. While working on this post, I checked my notes on the past releases of Beaujolais Nouveau, and it looks like with the exception of 2011, all the vintages were very consistent, offering good quality, very drinkable wine which gave a lot of pleasure. I know that some people dismiss Beaujolais Nouveau as a marketing gimmick and simply refuse to drink the wines – however, I wholeheartedly disagree and I believe this young celebratory wine well worth wine aficionados' attention.
This year, I had an opportunity to try two different Beaujolais wines – 2014 Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau (12% ABV, $9.99) and 2014 Domaine Manoir du Carra Beaujolais Nouveau (12.5% ABV, $10.99). Talking about interesting experiences, for the first time I remember drinking Beaujolais Nouveau, and definitely for the first time while writing this blog, I found two of the different bottles of wine which taste nearly identical. This was very puzzling experience, as I was looking for the different descriptors, and couldn't find any. Okay, they were not 100% the same wines, of course – but differences were very subtle, may be in the particular fruit profile being more pronounced in one wine and not in the other, and majority of the description would stay the same. To acknowledge that, I will give you a description for both wines at the same time.
Color: Bright Garnet
Nose: Freshly crushed red fruit, lavender, unmistakable aroma of the young wine
Palate: Red fruit, cherries, tart blackberries, violet, lavender, medium body with some structure, vibrant acidity, good balance, medium finish.
Verdict: a good wine, easy to drink, fresh, should play well with the wide range of food due to the substantial acidity. Yes it will do just fine on your Thanksgiving table (will be definitely on mine). Drinkability: 7+/8- for both – really hard to decide.
Yet another Beaujolais Nouveau day becomes a history. Well, of course not so fast – the wines will be available for a while, and while they are not meant for aging, overall textural presence of the two wines I tasted suggests that these wines can last for the few years – but this is definitely not what you want to do. And than that mind boggling similarity between the two totally different wines – I don't know what to think of it, except that may be the similar winemaking methods used, like carbonic maceration and such, lead to the similar results for the two totally unrelated wines. Perhaps this is not a very solid explanation, so I would love to hear your theory if you got one.
Did you already have the Beaujolais Nouveau 2014? If you did, what kind and what did you think of it? Cheers!
Wednesday's Meritage – #MWWC13 Reminder, Zinfandel Day, How To Start A Blog, WS Top 100 and more
Lots of things to share – let's get to it! First of all – the Monthly Wine Writing Challenge #13. The theme is Serendipity, and I really hope the theme is intriguing enough to see a lot of entries in the contest! For all the rules and regulations, please take a look at this post.
Last week we celebrated Tempranillo, and yet another grape holiday is upon us. On Wednesday, November 19th, we are celebrating an iconic American grape – Zinfandel! The Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Syrah wines are made pretty much everywhere in the world – but Zinfandel, in its pure form, is a real representative of an American winemaking culture. It is very easy to celebrate Zinfandel – just find a bottle of your favorite Zin, open it up and say "wow". That's all what is required.
When it rains, it pours. Wednesday is a Zinfandel holiday, but on Thursday, November 20th, we are going to celebrate the new grape harvest! November 20th is a third Thursday of the month of November, which means … yes, Beaujolais Nouveau time! I know, Beaujolais Nouveau often gets bad rap from the wine aficionados, but to me, the wine considerably improved over the last 5-6 years, and now it is a real wine which gives you real pleasure. I'm very much looking forward to tasting the 2014 Beaujolais Nouveau. And don't forget that this new wine is celebrated all over the world – from Paris to New York to Washington to Chicago, you can find many events celebrating new harvest and life – just use the faithful Google, it will help you find the live event if you care to attend one.
On Monday, November 17th, Wine Spectator released its annual Top 100 Wines List for 2014. 2011 Dow Vintage Point was declared the wine of the year. What is amazing to me is that my friend Zak (wine store owner), predicted this exact wine to be the wine of the year in 2013 – and now it is, only one year later – that is very impressive in my opinion. The list looks quite diverse, with entries from all over the world. One of the interesting facts is that 3 out of the Top 10 wines are from Portugal. The least expensive wine on the list is priced at $10 (Bodegas Montecillo Rioja), and the most expensive one is Ornellaia at $240. You can analyze the list in many more ways – here is the link for you. Note that you can also go through the past 25 years of the Top 100 lists using the same link.
Recently I came across a blog post which provides excellent tips for the beginner bloggers about the content, dealing with social media, promoting the blog and all other related issues. I'm sure many of my readers already know most of this, but it never hurts to go through a refresher course – there is a good chance of finding something new. And for the people who are contemplating to start their own blog, having that good of an advice might be a tipping point. Here is the link to the post. I will also make it available on my Resources page.
Do you want to know in advance when the wine holidays are taking place? Me too – and this is why I'm glad I found this calendar, which lists most of the wine holidays in a very easy to understand format – here is the link so you can see it for yourself.
Last for today is a note of the new service called CorkSharing. If you plan to visit a winery, you can use the service to book your tasting in advance – when you arrive at the winery, you can just proceed to the tasting without waiting for it in line. The list right now includes 11 countries and 166 participating locations. I think this is an interesting service, especially if you plan your winery visit in advance.
And we are done! The glass is empty – but the refill is on its way. Cheers!
Wednesday's Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, Wine Spectotor Top 100, Perfect Holiday Gift Solution, and more
First, let's start with the answer for the wine quiz #82, grape trivia – Gamay.
In the quiz, you were supposed to answer 5 questions about red grape called Gamay. Here are the questions, now with the answers:
Q1: Gamay is closely associated with every third Thursday in November. Can you explain why?
A1: Beaujolais Nouveau is coming into town! While Beaujolais Nouveau was always the first wine of the harvest to be delivered to the restaurants and shops in Europe, in 1985 the phenomenon became more organized, settling on the third Thursday of November to make the new release available.
Q2: Carbonic maceration is an important method in production of wines made out of Gamay. Can you briefly explain what is carbonic maceration and how does it helps here?
A2: Carbonic maceration is a process where the grapes in a sealed tank are subjected to the flow of CO2, which start fermenting the juice inside of the whole grapes before they will be crushed. The resulting wine becomes fruity with very low presence of tannins. This process is particularly used inproduction of Beaujolais Nouveau and other Beaujolais wines. For more information, please refer to Wikipedia article.
Q3: Fill in the blanks: In Beaujolais, Fleuri is considered to produce the most ___ wine, and Moulin-à-Vent produces the most ___ wines.
A3: In Beaujolais, Fleuri is considered to produce the most feminine wine, and Moulin-à-Vent produces the most masculine wines. Feminine and Masculine are the descriptors typically used by wine professionals to describe the wines of Fleuri and Moulin-à-Vent wines.
Q4: Which one doesn't belong and why:
a. Brouilly, b. Côte de Brouilly, c. Côte Chalonnaise, d. Juliénas, e. Régnié
A4: c. Côte Chalonnaise. The other four names are part of Cru de Beaujolais ten villages, but Côte Chalonnaise doesn't belong there (it is an AOC in Burgundy).
Q5: True or False: Beaujolais Nouveau wines can be aged for a few years before consumption.
A5: False. The whole point of aging the wine is to wait for it to develop further in the bottle and become more enjoyable. Beaujolais Nouveau is meant to be enjoyed right away and should be consumed by May of next year – it doesn't improve in the bottle.
So for the winners, Jeff the drunken cyclist continues his winning streak – he got correctly 5 out of 5, including the difficult question #3. Great job, Jeff – unlimited bragging rights are yours! I would like to also acknowledge Wayward Wine,Whine And Cheers For Wine and Eat with Namie who all correctly answered 4 questions out of 5. Well done!
Now, to the interesting stuff around the vine and the web!
On Monday, November 18th, Wine Spectator published their Top 100 list of Wines. Yes, I know, many dismiss the whole notion of Wine Spectator ratings and Top lists as closely associated with the advertizement dollars spent with publication. True or not, but I still have a lot of respect to Wine Spectator and definitely curios to see their "top wines" list. As Wine Spectator celebrates 25th anniversary, they whole web site is open to the public (typically it requiressubscription). I would highly recommend that you will take advantage of this opportunity and explore the site which has a great wealth of wine information. Also, here is the link to the WS Top 100 wines of 2013. I have to admit that I'm happy with Wine Spectator's choice for the wine of the year – 2004 Cune Rioja Imperial Gran Reserva. In general, Cune Imperial makes great wines, and I think it is an excellent choice for the wine of the year.
Thinking about holiday gifts? Does your list include any wine lovers? If yes, you are in luck, but you will need to act quick. On December 2nd, WTSO will conduct a Gift Marathon (full info can be found here). As a traditional WTSO Marathon, there will be no announcements of new wines. But each wine will come gift packaged, with one bottle and two varietally correct Riedel glasses in the box. Most importantly – free shipping on each package (no minimums), and each packaged can be shipped directly to your gift recipient – this is the best part! Prices start from $44.95 per box (free shipping). I think this is a deal not to be missed, so point your browser to WTSO on December 2nd and happy hunting!
You know Wine-Searcher is a great resource for finding the wines online and comparing the prices. Are you curious what the other people looking for on the wine-searcher? Here is an interesting article, which tells you what the consumers in America are looking for. Based on the article, looks like most of the times people are looking for red Bordeaux blends – which makes sense, as there are a lot more Bordeaux blends produced nowadays. Anyway, for your own analysis and lots more data, take a look at the article.
When you make dinner, how often do you think about what wine should be opened for the food you are serving? Sometimes the pairing can be quite difficult, so I have no problems taking my food and wine separately. But when you hit the mark and the wine and food "work" together, it becomes the whole new level of experience. To help you in this process of pairing food and wine, here is the link to the web site I recently came across – I think it has a lot of good suggestions. Take a look – you might be able to pleasantly surprise yourself and your guests during your next dinner.
That's all I have for you for today, folks. The glass is empty – but refill is on its way. Until the next time – cheers!
Wednesday's Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, Tempranillo Day, Beaujolais Nouveau Coming Up, The Widow Who Reinvented Champagne, and more
First, let's start with the answer for the wine quiz #81, grape trivia – Petite Sirah.
In the quiz, you were supposed to answer 5 questions about red grape called Petite Sirah. Here are the questions, now with the answers:
Q1: Name the grape: In California, Petite Sirah is a popular blending addition to ___?
A1: Zinfandel. You can find a small percentage of Petite Sirah (5% – 10%) in many Zinfandel bottlings
Q2: When it comes to the wines in the United States, there is an interesting similarity between the Petite Sirah and Primitivo. Can you explain?
A2: The similarity comes from the fact that both Petite Sirah and Primitivo were the part of the same request to the TTB (government organization in charge of labeling), to allow use of Durif interchangeably with Petite Sirah, and Zinfandel with Primitivo. It is interesting to note that contrary to the information in Wikipedia, which says that both requests were never resolved, it appears that Durif is officially recognized as a synonym to Petite Sirah, while Primitivo and Zinfandel are not – you can find the complete list of the approved names through the link to the list of approved grape names in this US government document.
Q3: Which one doesn't belong and why:
a. Arizona, b. Illinois, c. New Mexico, d. New York, e. Texas
A3: d. New York – there is no Petite Sirah wines produced in New York (at least in the meaningful quantities).
Q4: In the bad, rainy growing season conditions in California, Petite Sirah can be a savior – can you explain why and how does it help?
A4: As the Petite Sirah is mildew resistant and provides supple tannins, color and structure, in the bad years it can be added to Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and other wines to improve the quality.
Q5: What love has to do with the Petite Sirah?
A5: "P.S. I Love You" is a consortium dedicated to the promotion of Petite Sirah wines.
Talking about the results, the drunken cyclist continues his winning streak, so he gets ( again) the prize of unlimited bragging rights. Well done!
Now, to the interesting stuff around the vine and the web!
First of all, tomorrow, November 14th, is an International Tempranillo Day! Tempranillo, the noble grape of Spain and Portugal, and rising star of Texas, is a source of many wonderful long-living wines, and it is definitely the grape worth celebrating. TAPAS, the society of producers and advocates of Tempranillo, lists a number of events celebrating the grape. But you don't even need to go anywhere to celebrate the Tempranillo – just grab a bottle, may be of Magnificent Rioja (but really, any Tempranillo wine will do), pour, smell, sip and enjoy!
Now, the next Thursday, November 21st, is a third Thursday in November. Do you know what it means? Yes, you are right – Beaujolais Nouveau! Every third Thursday in November, the young Beaujolais wine of the same year's vintage, called Beaujolais Nouveau, is becoming available in all the wine stores around the world. It is not just the wine – Beaujolais Nouveau also means celebration and fun. Don't forget to get the bottle and join the festivities!
I'm sure you know that classic Champagne with the yellow label on it – Veuve Cliquot, which would literally translate into a "widow Cliquot". But do you know the role the Barbe-Nicole Cliquot Ponsardin, the actual person behind that label, played in pretty much enabling the whole Champagne industry to exist, and for the mere mortals to be able to afford a bottle of Champagne? Barbe-Nicole's perseverance and her invention of the riddling were some of the key elements in making Champagne into what we readily enjoy today. Here is an article for you which is definitely worth reading – it is somewhat long but very fascinating and will be well worth your time. And you might even complement the reading with the glass of Champagne in your hand – it will be very appropriate.
Last piece I want to bring to your attention is Wine Spectator's Top 100 wines of 2013 list, gradually exposed at the rate of a few wines per day at the Wine Spectator web site. There are various contests taking place right now to predict the Wine Spectator Wine of the Year 2013, including the one which Wine Spectator runs by itself. So far the Wines #10 – #7 had been revealed, and more wines will be announced every day finishing with the Wine of the Year on Friday, November 15th. The full top 100 list will be published on Monday, November 18th. Looking at the 4 of the top 10 announced so far, I can only say that I'm a bit surprised. One of the selection criteria for the Top 10 is affordability – with the wines #10 and #9 priced at $135, and wines #8 and #7 priced at $120, I feel like I missed the memo about substantial increase in my salary, as those prices are definitely outside of the "affordable" realm, at least in my book. Also, as "availability" is another factor, highly allocated Quilceida Creek (wine #10) makes it also an interesting choice. I plan to come back to this subject next week, when the full Top 100 list will be announced – but any of your comments meanwhile will be most welcome.
That's all I have for you for today, folks. The glass is empty – but refill is on its way. Until the next time – cheers!


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The environment of individual tryptophans in known protein structures and the effectiveness of four commercial robotic UV microscopes to illuminate tryptophan-containing protein crystals by either tryptophan fluorescence (epi-illumination) or absorbance (transmission) are evaluated. In agreement with other studies, tryptophan residues are found on average to be largely buried in protein structures (with ~84% of their surface area buried) and to be surrounded by partially polar microenvironments (with ~43% of their surface area covered by polar residues), which suggests an inherent degree of fluorescence signal quenching. In bacterial genomes, up to one-third (~18.5% on average) of open reading frames are deficient in tryptophan. In the laboratory, because of the attenuation of UV light by the media commonly used in sitting-drop and hanging-drop crystallization trials, it was often necessary to simplify the light path by manually removing or inverting the supporting media. Prolonged exposure (minutes) to UV light precipitates some protein samples. The absorbance spectra of many commercially available media in crystallization trials are presented. The advantages of using tryptophan absorbance over fluorescence for characterizing crystals are discussed.
Protein crystallization is an empirical science and requires that for each protein, crystallographers test thousands of solution compositions to find one that is optimal for generating crystals with well formed lattices that diffract X-rays. As structural genomics consortia and other laboratories aim to solve the three-dimensional structures of proteins on a genome-wide scale, a number of robotics have been marketed to screen and optimize a vast array of solution conditions in order to crystallize the proteins, which is a prerequisite for structure determination. These robots significantly minimize the amount of protein required for screening (referred to as low-volume protein drop setting), visually monitor crystal growth or identify provisionally optimal conditions and rapidly formulate new solutions to further optimize crystallization (D'Arcy et al., 2004 ; McPherson, 2004 ; Newman et al., 2008 ). But how do the robots automatically and systematically identify the growth of a protein crystal versus a salt crystal or nonproteinaceous object in a trial drop? The answer is that full automation has yet to be achieved; it is primarily blocked by a lack of methods to identify preliminary crystallization hits quickly. Current robots that image each trial drop at best implement Fourier-based software programs that identify the edges or analyze the textures of the objects in a drop (Spraggon et al., 2002 ; Wilson, 2002 ; Cumbaa et al., 2003 ; Berry et al., 2006 ; Walker et al., 2007 ; Watts et al., 2008 ). However, these technologies cannot by themselves differentiate between salt crystals, amorphous material and protein crystals.
Traditionally, protein crystallographers make educated guesses as to the nature of a crystal by looking for dull edges on a well formed crystal and comparing its putative point-group symmetry, which suggests its space group, with their individual experience of working with other protein crystals. This approach, even for the experienced, is far from systematic and accurate. Crystallographers also sometimes miss microcrystal showers that are either mistaken for precipitated protein or have been buried by actual precipitate. Birefringence has been a useful and aesthetically pleasing property of crystals, helping to illuminate microcrystals in a drop (Echalier et al., 2004 ). However, birefringence mostly helps to check for the uniform lattice of a noncomposite crystal; it does not distinguish between salt crystals and protein crystals. Crystallographers then continue to manually and invasively dismantle the hanging-drop or sitting-drop crystallization experiment; they remove the cover slip that supports the trial drop in order to stain the crystal with dye, such as methyl violet, or to test the crystal for fragility by crushing it, both of which are signatures of protein. Even here the conclusion can be ambiguous and they have destroyed that crystal. Moreover, the typical drop in crystallization trials has become very small in order to minimize the amount of protein needed for screening. Each drop is now between 25 and 300 nl in high-throughput screening experiments, making handling and visual inspection more difficult. Lastly, crystallographers finally patiently mount each remaining crystal (if large enough) onto the X-ray generator and observe the resulting diffraction pattern, which effectively characterizes the nature of the crystal. Because we lack a quick and systematic approach, the field of automation has yet to implement an effective scoring scheme to evaluate hits in crystallization trials.
An emerging technology in the field of protein crystallography is the development of the ultraviolet (UV) microscope. UV microscopes take advantage of the fluorescence of tryptophan residues under UV light to illuminate protein crystals. Tryptophans, and to a much lesser extent tyrosines and phenylalanines, fluoresce around 353 nm when excited with UV light at 280 nm. One of the first commercial UV-light microscopes to distinguish protein crystals from salt crystals was implemented by the company Korima (referred to here as microscope 1; Judge et al., 2005 ). However, the principles of UV fluorescence had been implemented previously to center protein crystals in the X-ray beam (Pohl et al., 2004 ). In more recent years, fluorescent dyes have also been used in cocrystallization experiments to help to identify protein crystals (Kettenberger & Cramer, 2006 ; Forsythe et al., 2006 ; Groves et al., 2007 ).
Studies have shown that UV light can be damaging to proteins by photolysis or photo-oxidation mechanisms (Dose, 1968 ; Permyakov, 1993 ; Vernede et al., 2006 ; Kehoe et al., 2008 ). Studies have also shown that fluorescence can be quenched by various mechanisms. For example, in the case of the nonradiative Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) mechanism, a chemical group, usually at a distance of 15–60 Å from the tryptophan, accepts the energy that would otherwise be emitted at ~353 nm (Permyakov, 1993 ; Lakowicz, 2006 ). Other examples include collisional mechanisms (i.e. quenching by diffusion of, for example, molecular oxygen from the solvent; Lakowicz, 2006 ), electron-transfer mechanisms [i.e. quenching by disulfide bridges, glutamine (Chen & Barkley, 1998 ), asparagine, glutamate, aspartate, cysteine and histidine residues (Chen & Barkley, 1998 ; Permyakov, 1993 ) and amide and peptide groups (Callis & Liu, 2004 ; Permyakov, 1993 ; Lakowicz, 2006 )], proton-transfer mechanisms (i.e. quenching by tyrosine, lysine and protonated histidine residues; Chen & Barkley, 1998 ; Permyakov, 1993 ), photo-oxidation mechanisms (i.e. quenching by the kynurenine oxidation ring cleavage of tryptophan; Kehoe et al., 2008 ) and some further mechanisms that are still under investigation (Permyakov, 1993 ).
In this paper, the usefulness of tryptophan as a tool for structural genomics is characterized and the effectiveness of four current prototype UV microscopes to illuminate protein crystals in my laboratory of automated crystallization are reported.
A list of 763 nonhomologous soluble proteins from the PDB was generated. The environmental distribution of 2665 tryptophans from this sample set of crystal structures was analyzed using the programs PDB2ENV with a probe of radius 0.75 Å (Bowie et al., 1991 ) and DSSP (Kabsch & Sander, 1983 ). When possible, the quaternary structure of the protein was generated using the protein quaternary-structure file server PQS (European Bioinformatics Institute, Macromolecular Structure Database; http://pqs.ebi.ac.uk) before analysis.
The following genomes were analyzed for tryptophan content: those of the archaea Aeropyrum pernix (aero), Archaeoglobus fulgidus (aful), Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum (mthe), Methanococcus jannaschii (mjan), Pyrococcus abyssi (pabyssi) and P. horikoshii (pyro) and the bacteria Aquifex aeolicus (aquae), Bacillus subtilis (bsub), Borrelia burgdorferi (bbur), Campylobacter jejuni (cjej), Chlamydia pneumoniae (cpneu), C. trachomatis (ctra), Deinococcus radiodurans (dra1), Escherichia coli (ecoli), Haemophilis influenzae (hinf), Helicobacter pylori (hpyl99), Mycoplasma pneumoniae (mpneu), M. genitalium (mgen), Mycobacterium tuberculosis (mtub), Neisseria meningitidis (nmen), Rickettsia prowazekii (rpxx), Synechocystis PC6803 (synecho), Thermatoga maritima (tmar), Treponema pallidum (tpal) and Ureaplasma urealyticum (uure).
My laboratory (http://pepcc.case.edu) contains a Mosquito robot (TTP LabTech, Royston, Herts, England) for drop setting and a RockImager-500 (Formulatrix, Waltham, Massachusetts, USA) for automatic imaging. Four UV microscopes were sampled, one from each of the four leading manufacturers.
The following brands of media were used in this study: 0.2 mm thick glass cover slips (HR3-231, Lot No. 200801-0679-Ø22*1Δ, Hampton Research, Aliso Viejo, California, USA), 0.96 mm thick cover slips (HR3-247 or HR3-515, Hampton Research, California, USA), Mosquito's ViewDrop II substrate (4150-05600, TTP LabTech), Grace Bio-Labs substrates (45232, Lot No. 090858 and 45233, Lot No. 070841, Grace Bio-Labs, Washington, USA), Formulatrix substrate (prototype), ClearSeal film (HR4-521, Lot No. 8061/MR69150, Hampton Research, California, USA) and CrystalClear HP260 tape (HR4-511, Hampton Research, California, USA). Microscope 4 was used to generate the absorption spectra of the commercial media by placing the media in the light path on the stage, focusing the beam on an area within the range 1–10000 µm2.
The N-terminal cytoplasmic domain of NBCe1 (NtNBCe1; NP_003750) and full-length inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor-binding protein (IRBIT; NP_006612), each fused to a noncleavable hexahistidine tag (MGHHHHHH–) at their N-terminus, were purified using an approach similar to that described in Gill & Boron (2006 ). Crystals were grown by the hanging-drop vapor-diffusion method (McPherson et al., 1995 ). Crystallization conditions for NtNBCe1 have been described previously (Gill & Boron, 2006 ). Crystallization conditions for IRBIT will be described elsewhere. Other crystals in this study were randomly provided by users of the core.
Fig. 1 characterizes tryptophan residues in known protein structures and in various bacterial genomes. In Fig. 1 (a), the ~43% average surface area of tryptophans that is covered by polar residues is in agreement with data from previous studies by Chothia that characterized the amphipathic nature of tryptophan (Chothia, 1976 ). In Fig. 1 (b), tryptophans on average have ~84% of their surface area buried by polar and/or apolar residues in proteins and about 94% of the sampled tryptophans are at least 50% buried. These values are similar to those obtained in a survey by Burley and Petsko, who reported that aromatic pairs are buried or partially buried about 80% of the time (Burley & Petsko, 1985 ). Moreover, in genomes from the archaea and bacteria kingdoms, tryptophan residues are calculated here to comprise only 0.5–1.5%, with an average of 1.1% ± 0.3%, of protein residues in any given genome. This range is in agreement with pre-genomic calculations by Wallace and Janes and early post-genomic data values reported by Tekaia and coworkers (Wallace & Janes, 1999 ; Tekaia et al., 2002 ). In Fig. 1 (c), most striking is the high percentage (8.9–34.5%) of open reading frames within any one genome that, according to my tabulation, lack tryptophan.
Many commonly used covers in crystallography attenuate UV light at 280 nm. Fig. 2 compares the absorbance spectra of glass, film and substrate covers for hanging-drop or sitting-drop experiments that are widely used in the field. The extent of attenuation varies between the covers. Although UV microscope manufacturers each supply their own list of films for 96-well sitting-drop plates, substrates for 96-well hanging-drop plates and glass cover slips for VDX plates that work with their microscope, there is little agreement. Some of the inconsistency arises from varying lots of media from third-party manufacturers. Note that for a given medium only particular brands are useful in the UV range.
Unregulated continuous exposure to UV light (in the case of one of the dozen proteins tested here) precipitated the solution containing β-lactamase; that is, over prolonged exposures the protein-containing drop appeared to turn brown, similar to heat-induced denaturation. Of the four microscopes used in this study, microscopes 1 and 4 best illustrated this point. Unlike microscopes 2 and 3, which have computer-controlled exposure times (default UV-exposure settings of 1–2 min), microscopes 1 and 4 do not have an automated shutter for the UV light; the lamps are manually switched. The protein drop is continuously exposed to UV light as the user obtains images. Indeed, the pioneering microscope 1 destroyed a drop during a demonstration after an exposure of ~5 min.
As shown in Fig. 3 , microscope 2 appears to be the most sensitive as judged by the apparent fluorescence of the crystal. This observation is rather surprising given the significant attenuation of the excitation UV light by a 0.96 mm thick glass cover slip (see Fig. 2 ).
All the manufacturers have yet to measure accurately the flux of their microscopes either at the objective or at the sample. A description of the light sources, filters and objectives for each microscope is provided in §2. To ascertain whether the apparent fluorescence from microscope 2 arises from a larger flux of UV light compared with the other microscopes, a white fluorescent paper was placed in focus in each UV microscope. The flux from microscope 1 actually appeared to be the most intense and tightly focused: it was more than twice as bright and half as broad compared with microscopes 2, 3 and 4. However, the high flux from microscope 1 does not result in a higher signal-to-noise ratio or increased fluorescence compared with the other microscopes. Longer 3 s exposures with the intense flux of microscope 1 still do not seem to improve the contrast between fluorescence and background, suggesting that the camera system of microscope 1 is inefficient.
The difference in sensitivity among the microscopes also correlated with the differences in the objectives among the microscopes. Unlike the other microscopes, microscope 3 only uses a low-magnification objective, which made it difficult to identify fluorescent crystals. Higher magnification objectives generally have a higher numerical aperture (NA), which improves fluorescence and image quality in epi-illumination. This in agreement with textbook knowledge that both the amount of excitation light delivered to the object and the amount of fluorescent light collected from the object rise with the square of NA, so that the overall advantage rises with the fourth power of NA (Inoué & Spring, 1997 ). In addition, the clarity of the images from microscopes 2 and 4 were better than those from microscope 3, whose objective may not be of optimal design.
Fig. 4 summarizes other comparisons of each UV microscope, highlighting the featural strengths of each manufacturer.
Despite the above drawbacks of the fluorescent approach, several drops containing crystalline and noncrystalline material (generated in high-throughput screens) fluoresced under UV light. In a metal-additive screen for crystallization of the cytosolic carbonic anhydrase domain of RPTP-γ, the fluorescence of crystalline objects shaped like smooth stones helped to identify the objects as protein. These stone-like objects, which were initially dismissed as salts, now suggest that the domain requires the presence of a metal ion for crystallization. In a screen for the crystallization of the protein thalin, the fluorescence of the instantaneously formed needles identified them as protein and so allows one to initiate, with minimal delay, new crystallization trials for optimization. The UV microscopes also illuminate clusters of protein, such as fibers, spherulites and amorphous material, which all presumably consist of higher concentrations of protein than the background of the drop. Note the bright feather-like material on top of the crystal in Fig. 3 shown with microscope 1 (see white arrow in brightfield column), microscope 2 (see white arrow in fluorescence column) and microscope 3. We can see from this feather-like material that the UV light does not distinguish between protein crystals and noncrystalline protein objects in the drops.
Fig. 5 shows a comparison between fluorescence and absorbance on a sample protein crystal. Although none of the microscopes work well on a genomic scale of screening by tryptophan fluorescence, especially with the currently available media for hanging drops, microscope 4 allows us to analyze by either fluorescence (epi-illumination) or absorbance (transmission). Note the following. (i) The fluorescing light in Fig. 5 (b) appears to be flat and homogenous throughout the crystals, as one would expect for light only arising from the crystal. (ii) The light emitted from the crystals is diffuse (inset in Fig. 5 b), while the light absorbed from the crystals (inset in Fig. 5 c) is sharp. That is, after excitation the emitted light of fluorescence scatters in all directions with interference by the surrounding protein solution, while the absorbed light travels within the crystals unidirectionally without significant interference by the protein solution. (iii) Tryptophan absorbance is better at detecting the crystals at the corners of the drop than brightfield or tryptophan fluorescence.
Although the results above demonstrate that UV indeed appears to be invasive or damaging to protein in some cases, it does rapidly identify crystals in high-throughput screens. UV is also useful for identifying leads to protein crystallization, separating the many amorphous materials that are typically generated by screens into the categories of either protein or artifact. Screens are only meant to be a starting point for crystallization.
That said, there are a growing number of known situations in which UV fluorescence may not identify a protein crystal. Firstly, nearby groups around tryptophan may be able to quench the fluorescence of the indole chromophore (Dose, 1968 ; Permyakov, 1993 ; Lakowicz, 2006 ; Kehoe et al., 2008 ). Fig. 1 (a) suggests that the fluorescence signal of an average tryptophan might already be subjected to partial quenching by surrounding residues. However, other quenching factors may also contribute to quenching, such as cofactors, metals or other additive molecules in near proximity to tryptophans. Examples of cofactors or additives in proteins that have been observed to quench tryptophan and/or tyrosine fluorescence include heme groups, succinimide, adenine, saccharin, certain detergents and 2-mercaptoethanol (Permyakov, 1993 ; Hof et al., 1996 ). Secondly, in genomes from the archaea and bacteria kingdoms, Fig. 1 (c) shows that up to approximately one-third of the genomic open reading frames can be deficient in tryptophan. In humans, there are also instances, such as insulin, calmodulin, troponin C or ribonuclease A (mature version), where the protein sequence may not contain tryptophan, or it may be devoid of both tryptophan and tyrosine, such as in most parvalbumins and green-pea superoxide dismutase (Permyakov, 1993 ). Thirdly, fluorescence may also arise from anomalies of the crystallization trial in which the protein concentration in the solution is higher than the background, such as the bright feather-like material in Fig. 3 . As a note, this situation of higher areas of protein concentration within a drop is different from the situation of a drop with heavy precipitation in solution that covers or masks microcrystals. The fluorescence of the precipitate should be minimal compared with the fluorescence of microcrystals or areas where the protein concentration is higher than the background because the tryptophans of unfolded protein are directly exposed to solvent and their fluorescence is quickly quenched. Hence, for all the above reasons the minimum fluorescent signal that positively identifies a protein crystal has yet to be quantitated.
A strong or continuous amount of UV absorption in proteins could lead to the formation of free radicals by bond breakage, perhaps through increased kinetic energy of atom or bond vibrations, resulting in structural changes or precipitation. For example, tryptophan and tyrosine absorb UV light strongly on excitation at the 280 nm wavelength. As exemplified by Eisenberg and Crothers, for a protein that contains two tryptophans and six tyrosines we can calculate using the Beer–Lambert law that 75% of UV light is absorbed and 25% is transmitted by a 1 mg ml−1 protein solution concentration in a cuvette with path length 0.1 mm (Eisenberg & Crothers, 1979 ). The strong aborption of UV light by these residues could result in photolysis (Dose, 1968 ) or photo-oxidation (Kehoe et al., 2008 ) mechanisms that could lead to protein unfolding and subsequent unfavorable cross-linking. Keheo and cowokers reported the aggregation of β-lactoglobulin that resulted from the cleavage of disulfide bridges and photo-oxidation of tryptophan to N′-formylkynurenine and that resulted in an increase in exposed sulfhydryl groups (Kehoe et al., 2008 ). Permyakov described an electron-transfer mechanism in α-lactalbumin between tryptophan and a nearby disulfide that resulted in reduction of the disulfide bonds (Permyakov, 1993 ). In another example, despite the absence of tryptophan, Vernede and coworkers demonstrated using X-ray crystallographic methods the damage to the CysA7–CysB7 disulfide bridge in insulin by UV radiation that resulted in a change in local backbone structure (Vernede et al., 2006 ).
Fig. 1 (b) shows that the majority of tryptophans are nearly to completely buried. However, the fact that tryptophans might be buried is not in itself a limiting factor for generating UV fluorescence. Solution studies show that tryptophan residues that are hydrophobically buried in the core of proteins have spectra that exhibit a minimal Stokes shift (or have blue-shifted emission spectra) compared with tryptophans on the surface of the protein or unfolded protein, which emit at a slightly (~35 nm) longer wavelength (or have red-shifted emission spectra; Permyakov, 1993 ; Lakowicz, 2006 ). The spectral properties of tryptophans within a protein crystal should behave similarly to the spectra of proteins in solution. Thus, in light of molecular-dynamics simulations that suggest that tryptophan fluorescence is a consequence of electron transfer from the indole ring to a nearby amide (Callis & Liu, 2004 ), the intensity of tryptophan fluorescence should be influenced by degree of freedom on say a loop, contact with solvent and proximity to negatively charged residues or other quenching factors as described above. In this sense, it is to the advantage of UV fluorescence microscopy that tryptophans be buried, preferably in hydrophobic environments.
The real obstacle for fluorescence arises at the boundary of the crystal–solvent interface. The solution surrounding the crystal will contain unknown amounts of free protein molecules that will partially reabsorb any emitted light from the crystal, thereby red-shifting or distorting the true spectral characteristics of the crystal. This is referred to as an 'inner filter effect' and is discussed below. This effect impedes studies to directly characterize the UV fluorescence of tryptophans inside a protein crystal unless the crystal is transferred to a non-absorbing solvent such as water.
Ideally, quartz is the medium of choice for UV transmission at the 280 nm wavelength, although cost makes it prohibitive, especially in high-throughput crystallization trials that will quickly be disposed of. However, in order to overcome cost obstacles, many types of media for general applications have been customized for measurements at a broad range of wavelengths. A high-quality glass is used as the Fura excitation dye filter corresponding to the 340–380 nm wavelengths that are commonly used in calcium absorption measurements. Plastic cuvettes that transmit in the range 220–900 nm allow us to calculate DNA concentration at 260 nm, to calculate protein concentrations at 280 nm and to calculate cell density at 600 nm in spectrophotometers. Given these properties, it is not clear why such plastic materials are not more widely used in the protein-crystallography community.
Manufacturers for UV microscopy are only now working on standardizing the refractive index for their crystallographic plastic consumables and the corresponding wavelength for excitation. Exciting with longer wavelengths, such as 295 nm, generally works better with glass and plastics and minimizes tryptophan absorptivity. Longer wavelengths also diminish the signal from tyrosine and phenylalanine and thus are also useful when monitoring local conformational changes of protein structure by the fluorescence changes of single tryptophan residues. Conversely, the signal from tyrosine and phenylalanine residues, which are usually present in much higher numbers and are usually present in proteins devoid of tryptophans, could significantly contribute to fluorescence at the shorter 280 nm wavelength when screening for crystals.
The prerequisite for plastic is not only its ability to transmit UV light; the characteristics and structure of the plastic also have to be tested with complementary equipment for automation. Firstly, the plastic needs to be compatible for general brightfield imaging, say in the RockImager-500, whether the media are for sitting-drop or hanging-drop experiments. This means that the birefringence of the plastic itself has to be minimized. Preferably, the birefringence of the plastic should be eliminated as discussed in Echalier et al. (2004 ), but even polystyrene trays have some birefringence. Secondly, the plastic has to be compatible with the drop setter. Remarkably, the Mosquito robot is a drop setter on the current market that efficiently produces hanging drops with three protein-to-reservoir solution drops per well at a nanolitre volume. To do this, the Mosquito is dependent on a substrate, a hard plastic consumable that glues itself over a 96-well plate after the drops are set onto it. Although a couple of substrates in Fig. 2 from third-party manufacturers are UV-compliant (dependent on the wavelength), owing to flimsy materials these manufacturers have yet to implement proper use of these plastics with the Mosquito. Plastics in sitting-drop experiments are less of an issue here.
There are a number of factors that make absorbance slightly preferable over fluorescence when screening.
Firstly, the fluorescence of crystals is relatively low compared with their absorbance. This phenomenon is analogous to what is commonly referred to as another type of inner filter effect in protein solutions. Because of the high concentration or optical density of tryptophans, which absorb strongly with excitation at the 280 nm wavelength near the surface of a crystal, UV light does not uniformly penetrate the crystal and excites only a limited amount of tryptophans. In fluorescence, this means that the majority of the light is emitted primarily from the face of the protein crystal towards the incident light, where partial re-absorption may take place by the surrounding solution that will in turn re-emit at longer (red-shifted) wavelengths. In absorbance, all the light that is absorbed in a protein crystal collectively or additively results in increasing contrast to the background of the drop, resulting in a darkened image. As previously noted, the term 'inner filter effect' could imply either a lack of penetration of UV light into the protein crystal or a lack of emission of fluorescence from the crystal owing to re-absorption from the surroundings (Lakowicz, 2006 ). It is not clear which effect dominates in protein crystals. In either case, the weak fluorescent light emitted in microscopes 3 and 4 as shown in Fig. 3 is reasonable and it may be that the camera sensitivity of microscope 2 rather exaggerates the amount of light emitted.
Secondly, if the crystal contains a cofactor that absorbs excitation light, such as ADP (Bagshaw, 2001 ), the cofactor will add to the overall absorbance intensity of the crystal and at the same time subtract from the light available for general excitation. As a note, the decreased amount of fluorescent emission that results here because of the absorption (pre-emission) is strictly not referred to as quenching because the quantum yield of fluorescence does not change (Engelborghs, 2003 ). In any event, a possible drawback is that any aromatic in solution, say as part of an inhibitor that is used in cocrystallization experiments, will also absorb (or fluoresce) and the crystallization components will have to be scrutinized before assuming that an object in a screen is a protein crystal.
Thirdly, an absorbance image can be obtained in a shorter exposure time than a fluorescent image (Lunde et al., 2005 ). In fact, transmission of UV light from the bottom of the tray (penetrating the plastic tray and reservoir solution) nevertheless yielded useable absorbance images.
Fourthly, molecules that absorb will not always fluoresce or will have low fluorescence quantum yields, since excited molecules can dissipate their excitation energy through methods other than light emission, such as through heat dissipation to the solvent (i.e. vibrational relaxation), quenching mechanisms and/or nonradiative pathways of decay (Lakowicz, 2006 ). For example, DNA crystals absorb but do not fluorescence very well. The fluorescence of aromatic groups (bases) in DNA has been shown to be low in solution (Pisarevskii et al., 1966 ) because of alternate pathways of decay (Zhang et al., 2009 ).
Fifthly, unlike fluorescence, it may be possible to obtain characteristic spectra of a crystal in a protein drop by absorption, since the loss of excitation energy by the absorption of the surrounding protein solution is negligible compared with that absorbed by a protein crystal. In principle, one might even be able to identify the space groups of multiple-crystal forms in a drop based on the absorption spectra of previously well characterized crystals, although this has yet to be investigated.
Finally, one disadvantage in absorbance is the case of microcrystals covered by heavy precipitate. The precipitate also will absorb and, unlike fluorescence, obscure embedded microcrystals to an extent that will be dependent on the contrast ability of the microscope.
The number of proteins in a genome that do not contain tryptophan can be significant. Neglecting the contribution of phenylalanines and tyrosines, this makes tryptophan less than perfect for detection, depending on the genome.
All microscopes that were tested are advertised as high-throughput units (able to scan a crystallization tray). However, because of the attenuation of UV light by the media (e.g. films, some cover slips and plastic substrates) commonly used in sitting-drop and hanging-drop experiments, it was necessary to manually remove or flip the media, minimizing its glare or attenuation, at the same time deleteriously exposing the crystal. Therefore, the implementation for screening by UV is not yet at a point where high throughput can be achieved without consideration of the media.
Tryptophan fluorescence is complicated by the fact that the crystal is in a protein-solution background whose boundaries influence the emitted light. In contrast to tryptophan fluorescence, the net signal from tryptophan absorbance seemed to be less affected by protein environment, requires shorter exposure time for imaging and is demonstrated to give slightly sharper and more conclusive images to distinguish protein from salt crystals than tryptophan fluorescence despite some of the drawbacks of the current media.
In-depth protein crystal characterization by UV fluorescence is limited owing to the requirement for tryptophan residues, the interference of emission by the protein drop and the concern regarding quenching factors. UV absorbance may be preferable and should be given consideration by the manufacturers. Spectral properties are not strictly necessary for high-throughput screening, however, where an absolute answer (yes or no) is only required to determine the nature of a crystal. Still, in screening core user samples an absolute answer could not always be given without a fiddle factor. The reasons here include poor media choices, unclear fluorescent images and crystalline or thereabouts material that illuminated. While plates themselves are an important factor in brightfield imaging, they are not an important factor in epi-illumination nor do they appear to cause a problem in transmission even when reservoir liquid is present. In terms of the tested microscopes, the exposure times for adequate inspection need only be less than a minute, necessitating the need for a control shutter to minimize protein damage. Performance did not correlate with price. An experienced crystallographer at the helm still proves to be crucial. In a nutshell, UV detection is not likely to make the bridge from identifying a protein crystal to one that actually diffracts X-rays and will not always be conclusive in every case with every microscope model. Nevertheless, its usefulness is apparent every time a protein crystal condition is discovered, when excitement is tempered by nonfluorescence or non-absorption of a salt crystal or as a selection tool to justify time to optimize a preliminary condition.
I thank Dr Steve LaBrenz, Professor Walter F. Boron and Professor Yves Engelborghs for discussion. I also thank each of the manufacturers, Gil Ravich/Vu Tran at Korima, Jeremy Stevens/Ben Gallup at Formulatrix, Dr V. Nagarajan/Bob Reed at JANSi, Drs Jim Thorne/Dehua Yang at CRAIC Technologies and Bob Cudney at Hampton Research for participating in this study. Award No, K01DK082646 from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) supported the protein crystallization studies of the N-terminal domain of NBCe1 and the IRBIT portions of this project. The content is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIDDK or the NIH.
PubMed Central Canada is a service of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) working in partnership with the National Research Council's national science library in cooperation with the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the U.S. National Library of Medicine(NCBI/NLM). It includes content provided to the PubMed Central International archive by participating publishers.

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Methodist Church in the United States
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United States Church Records Methodist Church Records
History in the United States
By 1850 approximately one-third of all American Protestants were Methodists. From about 1820 to 1920 Methodism was the largest Protestant denomination.
Methodist Church Records
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United Methodist Archives Center
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P.O. Box 127
Madison, NJ 07940
Telephone: 201-408-3189
Fax: 201-408-3909
Internet: www.gcah.org
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go outside the sun dosent bite
don't tell a halo player that.
No, you idiots, he meant "Wed" playtime, being short for Wednesday. He means that he has been playing his Wii less and less over time. My advice is to just let it happen. It's not good to play too much.
yes he most certainly did. i didn't even realize that he spelled it Web. Anyway, anyone who gets upset that their wii playing time has dropped to 6 hours should seriously kill themselves. i wasn't kidding. how pathetic can you be that you play 6 hours a day and think you're not playing enough? GET A LIFE!!!!


text:
Khemasuri tried teaching herself meditation for a couple of years and found Taraloka after realising she need to ask the question 'what do you do with an itch?'. He love of meditation lead her to the Dharma and she was ordained in 2005. Khemasuri has experience of rural, urban and Buddhafield Sanghas. She lives in Sheffield and has been co-ordinator for the team that supports the International Order Convenors for some while.
Khemasuri has a strong 'lay' interest in science and in particular how we can use 'systems thinking' as a way of understanding the Dharma and conditionality in particular.


text:
Joanna Jedrzejczyk hasn't quite reached superstar status quite yet, but if the punishing striker scores another memorable win at UFC 193, she'll be well on her way.
The strawweight champ will take on Valerie Letourneau on November 15th (it will air here in N.A. on the 14th) in what will be her fifth UFC bout. Jedrzejczyk joined the promotion last July, and since then she's scored wins over Juliana de Lima Carneiro, Claudia Gadelha, Carla Esparza and most recently Jessica Penne.
In advance of her next title defense, the UFC has posted "The Journey", which features Jedrzejczyk discussing her rise up through the promotion. You can check it out below.
UFC 193 will take place in Melbourne, Australia.


text:
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text:
Chi Zhang
Chi Zhang US
|Patent application number
|ELECTROACTIVE MATERIALS - A compound having Formula I, Formula II, or Formula III:
Chi Zhang, Goleta, CA US
|Patent application number
|WATER DISPERSIBLE POLYTHIOPHENES MADE WITH POLYMERIC ACID COLLOIDS - Devices are provided comprising conductive or semiconductive layers comprising compositions comprising aqueous dispersions of polythiophenes having homopolymers or co-polymers of Formula I(a) or Formula I(b) and at least one colloid-forming polymeric acid. Methods of making such compositions and using them in organic electronic devices are further provided.
|WATER DISPERSIBLE POLYTHIOPHENES MADE WITH POLYMERIC ACID COLLOIDS - Compositions are provided comprising a continuous liquid aqueous medium having dispersed therein a polydioxythiophene and at least one colloid-forming fluorinated polymeric acid. Films from invention compositions are useful as buffer layers in organic electronic devices, including electroluminescent devices, such as, for example, organic light emitting diodes (OLED) displays.
|BUFFER BILAYERS FOR ELECTRONIC DEVICES - The present invention relates to buffer bilayers, and their use in electronic devices. The bilayer has a first layer including (i) at least one electrically conductive polymer doped with at least one non-fluorinated polymeric acid and (ii) at least one highly-fluorinated acid polymer. The bilayer has a second layer which is a reacted layer from a metal which can be one or more transition metals, Group 13 metals, Group 14 metals, or lanthanide metals.
|BUFFER BILAYERS FOR ELECTRONIC DEVICES - The present invention relates to buffer bilayers, and their use in electronic devices. The bilayer has a first layer including at least one electrically conductive polymer doped with at least one highly-fluorinated acid polymer. The second layer is a reacted layer from a metal which can be one or more transition metals, Group 13 metals, Group 14 metals, or lanthanide metals.
|BUFFER BILAYERS FOR ELECTRONIC DEVICES - The present invention relates to buffer bilayers, and their use in electronic devices. The bilayer has a first layer including (i) at least one electrically conductive polymer doped with at least one non-fluorinated polymeric acid and (ii) at least one highly-fluorinated acid polymer. The bilayer has a second layer including a metal which can be one or more transition metals, Group 13 metals, Group 14 metals, or lanthanide metals.
|WATER DISPERSIBLE POLYTHIOPHENES MADE WITH POLYMERIC ACID COLLOIDS - Compositions are provided comprising a continuous liquid aqueous medium having dispersed therein a polydioxythiophene and at least one colloid-forming fluorinated polymeric acid. Films from invention compositions are useful as buffer layers in organic electronic devices, including electroluminescent devices, such as, for example, organic light emitting diodes (OLED) displays.
Patent applications by Chi Zhang, Goleta, CA US
Chi Zhang, Kunshan CN
|Patent application number
|Electrical connector - A miniature electrical connector includes an insulating housing (
|Electrical connector having a shell with a portion retained in an insulative housing - An electrical connector (
|FPC CONNECTOR HAVING GROUNDING STRUCTURE - An electrical connector for electrically connecting with a flexible circuit board includes an insulative housing (
|CONNECTOR HAVING THREE-WAY INTERCONNECTION - An electrical connector (
|ELECTRICAL CONNECTOR HAVING DUAL-SOLDERING SURFACES - An electrical connector comprises an insulative housing (
Patent applications by Chi Zhang, Kunshan CN
Chi Zhang, Sunnyvale, CA US
|Patent application number
|Communication Virtual Machine - A system for automating at least a portion of a communication application development cycle using a communication virtual machine that automatically interfaces with an existing network system and provides an engine for executing designed application models over the existing network system.
|COMMUNICATION VIRTUAL MACHINE - A system for automating at least a portion of a communication application development cycle using a communication virtual machine that automatically interfaces with an existing network system and provides an engine for executing designed application models over the existing network system.
Chi Zhang, Fresh Meadows, NY US
|Patent application number
|Device and Method for Connection Management - A mobile device comprises a processor and a transceiver. The processor selects from a plurality of connection types for a user plane assisted global position system (AGPS) data transfer. Each connection type includes a priority level where a first selected connection type is based on the priority levels of the connection types. The transceiver establishes a connection to a wireless network using the selection connection type.
|INTELLIGENT AND ADAPTIVE METHOD TO MANAGE MOBILE DEVICE POWER - The invention relates to systems and or methodologies for intelligent and adaptive power management in mobile devices. A peripheral power management component can set peripheral devices to active or inactive based on one or more schemas. The schemas can be predetermined or generated by the peripheral power management component. In addition, an adaptive component can modify the schemas to reflect actual usage or changing trends for each peripheral device.
Chi Zhang, Singapore SG
|Patent application number
|Microfluidic Continuous Flow Device - A microfluidic continuous flow device comprising a channel which comprises a first and a second area wherein the first area of the channel is a compartment which is defined by partitioning elements and the second area of the channel is a space outside the compartment; wherein through passages which are formed between the partitioning elements are dimensioned such as to retain a biological material and optionally a sustained release composition which can be comprised in the compartment within the compartment; wherein the channel has a first inlet to the compartment through which biological material can be introduced into the compartment; a second inlet for introducing a cultivation medium into a space of the channel arranged outside of the compartment, and an outlet. The present invention further refers to methods of using the devices of the present invention and kits comprising the microfluidic continuous flow devices of the present invention.
|DETERMINING MICROACTUATOR FAILURE IN A MULTI-STAGE TRACKING SYSTEM - A multi-stage tracking control system includes at least a main actuator and a microactuator. The tracking control system is switched to a single-stage mode so that the main actuator alone provides tracking. A disturbance signal is applied to the microactuator while in the single-stage mode, and a failure condition of the microactuator is determined based on a position error generated in response to the disturbance signal.
Chi Zhang, Beijing CN
|Patent application number
|WINDOW MANAGEMENT METHOD, APPARATUS AND COMPUTING DEVICE - A window management method, apparatus and a computing device are provided. The window management apparatus comprises a window rendering management device for managing the at least two windows in response to an input operation, to change the size and location of a target window of the at least two windows to which the input operation is directed, and simultaneously adaptively change the size and location of at least one other window of the at least two windows. With the embodiments of the present invention, upon detection of an input operation, a window control operation can be performed on at least two opened windows to change the sizes and locations of at least two opened windows simultaneously. In this way, a plurality of windows can be managed collectively by fewer operations, and the required numbers of user operations can be reduced.
|Method and Apparatus for Managing Buttons on Taskbar - A method and an apparatus for managing buttons on a taskbar are disclosed. The method is applied to the system with a first window and a second window, wherein, the first window is corresponding to a first button on the taskbar and has a first application program identifier, and the second window is corresponding to a second button on the taskbar and has a second application program identifier. The method comprises: a management command is received (S
|Method, Device, and System for Realizing Disaster Tolerance Backup - Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, a device, and a system for realizing disaster tolerance backup. The method includes the following steps: a device with an active-standby function determines a current state of the device with the active-standby function, after it is determined that the current state is an active state, the device with the active-standby function issues reachable route information to a connected routing device, where the device with the active-standby function and a device of which a current state is a standby state have a same IP address, the reachable route information includes route information relevant to the IP address, so that the IP address is reachable, and the device with the active-standby function and the device of which the current state is the standby state are backup devices for each other. The present invention can realize remote disaster tolerance backup and avoid service interruption.
|METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR REDUCING PACKET LOSS IN A SERVICE PROTECTION SCHEME - A method for reducing packet loss includes: performing automatic and real-time adjustment to cost values of a first route and a second route, so that the cost value of the corresponding route of the primary PW is lower than that of the corresponding route of the secondary PW. A corresponding system is also provided. Automatic and real-time adjustment to cost values of the first route and the second route, enable the cost value of the corresponding route of the primary PW to be lower than that of the corresponding route of the secondary PW, and therefore enable the downlink traffic not passing through the PW that just recovers from a failure, thereby reducing packet loss when the downlink traffic passes through the PW while the primary PW just recovers from a failure.
Patent applications by Chi Zhang, Beijing CN
Chi Zhang, Nanshan District, CN
|Patent application number
|WATER-IN-FUEL SENSOR - An uncoated polymer optical fibre (POF) that is sensitive to a chemical (e.g. water) and is used to generate a detectable change in its optical properties for the purpose of detecting that chemical when it is dissolved in liquid fuel. The presence of the chemical directly affects the optical properties of the optical fibre. The POF may be made of water-permeable plastic material and may have a grating section comprising a periodic refractive index modulation that exhibits a characteristic reflection or transmission profile to be monitored by a detector. The water-permeability of the constituent material of the POF permits diffusion of water into the fibre, thereby affecting its refractive index or geometry and hence altering the characteristic reflection or transmission profile of the grating section.
Chi Zhang, Shenzhen CN
|Patent application number
|Method and Mobile Terminal for Enabling Animation during Screen-switching - The present invention discloses a method and mobile terminal for enabling a screen-switching animation. The method comprises the following steps of: setting color values for all the pixel points in a first and a second training image, wherein the colors values are different from one another; generating a training sequence with the color values of all the pixel points in the first and the second training image according to the conversion rule of each frame in a screen-switching animation; and playing a screen-switching animation between the current screen and the next screen according to the training sequence. The present invention increases the smoothness of a screen-switching animation and improves user experience.
|Information feedback method and device for uplink closed loop transmission diversity - The present disclosure discloses an information feedback method for uplink closed loop transmission diversity, which includes: a base station allocates each Fractional Dedicated Physical Channel (F-DPCH) to at least one user; and the base station takes at least one F-DPCH as a feedback channel and arranges information of different users in each said F-DPCH by time division multiplexing, wherein information of at least one user in the F-DPCH includes feedback information of the uplink closed loop transmission diversity and an uplink Transmission Power Control (TPC) command. The present disclosure further discloses an information feedback device for uplink closed loop transmission diversity. Through the solution of the present disclosure, information feedback of the uplink closed loop transmission diversity can be implemented, when the information is a weight, the problem of weight feedback of the uplink closed loop transmission diversity is solved, and a user side of a High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) system is facilitated to complete an operation of transmission diversity.
|PORTAL PUSH METHOD AND NETWORK EQUIPMENT - Disclosed is a portal push method, which comprises: a broadband remote access server (BRAS) equipment acquiring a website identification list, after the BRAS equipment receives a hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) request message sent by a user terminal. The BRAS equipment determines whether to send portal pages to the user terminal according to whether the identification of a target website visited by the user client has a matched item in the list. The embodiments of the present disclosure further provide a corresponding BRAS equipment. The technical solutions of the embodiments of the present disclosure can reduce push times of invalid portals and improve portal push success rate.
|METHOD AND DEVICE FOR PROVIDING ONLINE GIFTING - A method and device for providing dynamically determined gift creation and dissemination in an online environment, including: receiving a gifting request from a first user for dynamically creating and disseminating one or more gifts to one or more recipients in the online environment, wherein the gifting request includes one or more gifting constraints that un-deterministically specify at least one of (1) a respective identity for at least one recipient and (2) a respective gift value for at least one gift; and dynamically creating and disseminating at least one gift in accordance with the one or more gifting constraints, including at least one of: dynamically selecting a respective gift value for at least one gifts in accordance with the one or more gifting constraints; and dynamically determining a respective identity for at least one recipient for at least one gift in accordance with the one or more gifting constraints.
|Wireless communication hotspot creation and connection method, hotspot creation end and hotspot connection end - Disclosed are a wireless communication hotspot creation and connection method, a hotspot creation end and a hotspot connection end. By encrypting a user name at a hotspot creation end to generate a hotspot name, the method configures a wireless communication parameter for the hotspot name generated by encryption to establish a wireless communication hotspot so as to enable a hotspot connection end to access the established wireless communication hotspot by decrypting the hotspot name, ensures that WiFi hotspot creation and automatic recognition are achieved between two or more terminals, and then achieves accurate WiFi interconnection.
Patent applications by Chi Zhang, Shenzhen CN
Chi Zhang, Dallas, TX US
|Patent application number
|DUTY CYCLE CORRECTION - Method and circuitry for controlling duty cycle of an input signal towards a desired value comprising a sequence of at least two inverters arranged in series and feedback circuitry. A first inverter is arranged to receive the input signal and a last inverter is arranged to output a signal having the same frequency as the input signal. The output signal is an adjusted version of the input signal. The feedback circuitry is arranged to receive the output signal and comprises a comparing and supplying means. The comparing means compares the output signal with a reference signal indicative of a desired value and generates a feedback signal based on the comparison of the output and reference signal. The supplying means supplies the feedback signal to adjust operating conditions of at least one of the inverters, such that the duty cycle of the output signal is controlled towards the desired value.
Chi Zhang, Pittsburgh, PA US
|Patent application number
|TECHNIQUES FOR LATCHING INPUT EVENTS TO DISPLAY FLIPS - A system including one or more input interface drivers, an input dispatcher, one or more applications, a system compositor and one or more output interface drivers. The input interface driver receives input events. The input dispatcher is modified to dispatch a current input event to a corresponding application after receiving an indication that a display image based upon a previous input event has been posted to an output interface driver. The corresponding application renders a new display image based upon the current input event. The system compositor posts the new display image to the output interface driver. The system compositor is also modified to send an indication to the input dispatcher that the new display image has been posted to the output interface driver. The system iteratively performs the process to latch the dispatching of input events to the display flip.
Chi Zhang, Evanston, IL US
|Patent application number
|ASYMMETRIC MULTI-CHANNEL GRIN OPTICAL CONNECTOR - A gradient-index (GRIN) optical connector is disclosed that includes a GRIN lens having a central optical axis and front and back opposite endfaces. A plurality of optical fibers are optically coupled to the back endface of the GRIN lens and defines a first optical fiber bundle having an asymmetric arrangement relative to the central optical axis of the GRIN lens. The GRIN lens has a refractive index profile generally defined by an alpha profile having an alpha parameter α in a range 1.92≦α≦1.98. An optical fiber connector assembly formed by interfacing two of the GRIN optical connectors is also disclosed.
|OPTICAL AND MECHANICAL ASSEMBLY FOR WALL WASH LIGHTING - A wall wash lighting assembly is provided for a recessed light fixture mountable on a ceiling. The lighting assembly includes an optical assembly and a trim face plate connected thereto. The optical assembly has a first kicker reflector, a second kicker reflector and a light-shaping optical film. The first kicker reflector reflects light from a light source. The second kicker reflector reflects light received from the first kicker reflector toward an adjacent wall. The light-shaping optical film spreads light from the light source and the first and second kicker reflectors in a uniform light pattern in a target area, such as onto the adjacent wall or downward in a direction parallel to the adjacent wall. The trim face plate has a trim opening through which light is outputted onto the target area. The lighting assembly can employ detachable fasteners to allow for the interchangeability of the optical film and the trim face plate.
|EXTENDED LENS OPTICS FOR WALL WASH LIGHTING - A wall wash lighting assembly for a recessed light fixture includes a downlight trim, a kicker reflector and a light diffusing lens. The trim has an upper opening, a lower opening and a cavity therebetween. The kicker reflector is arranged in the cavity of the trim, and is used to reflect light toward an adjacent wall through the lower opening of the trim. The lens receives light from an LED light source and outputs diffused light into the cavity of the trim. The lens includes an elongated portion which extends vertically toward the lower opening. The lens provides a pool of direct light onto the adjacent wall via the elongated portion and a pool of reflected light indirectly onto the adjacent wall via the kicker reflector without having a dark space on the adjacent wall between the pool of direct light and the pool of reflected light.
Chi Zhang, Cambridge, MA US
|Patent application number
|Modification of Peptides via SNAr Reactions of Thiols with Fluorinated Aromatics - Disclosed are compounds and methods relating to a chemical transformation for the conjugation of unprotected peptide biomolecules via a S
|Cysteine Arylation Directed by a Genetically Encodable Pi-Clamp - Disclosed are methods of single-site-specific cysteine modification on peptide/protein molecules under physiologically relevant conditions. This process features several significant advantages over existing methods of peptide modification, such as specificity towards thiols over other nucleophiles (e.g., amines, hydroxyls), excellent functional group tolerance, and mild reaction conditions. Especially important is the specificity observed for thiols appearing in an X-Cys-Pro-X sequence over other thiols or disulfides, where X is Phe, Trp, or Tyr; under the inventive conditions, other cysteines or reactive functional groups on the same peptide/protein chain are not functionalized.
Chi Zhang, Lansing, MI US
|Patent application number
Chi Zhang, Great Neck, NY US
|Patent application number
Chi Zhang, Wilmington, DE US
|Patent application number
|REAL-TIME INSPECTION GUIDANCE OF TRIANGULATION SCANNER - A processor and projector images a coded projector pattern of light on a portion of an object providing a first coded surface pattern of light, images a first sequential projector pattern of light on another portion of the object providing a first sequential surface pattern of light, and images a second sequential projector pattern of light on the other portion providing a second sequential surface pattern of light. A camera forms a first coded image of the first coded surface pattern of light and generates a first coded array, forms a first sequential image of the first sequential surface pattern of light and generates a first sequential array, forms a second sequential image of the second sequential surface pattern of light and generates a second sequential array. The processor determines a correspondence between the camera and projector, and measures three-dimensional coordinates of the object.
Chi Zhang, Superior, CO US
|Patent application number
|Aptamers to PDGF and VEGF and Their Use in Treating PDGF and VEGF Mediated Conditions - Aptamers that bind PDGF and aptamers that bind VEGF are provided. In addition, aptamer constructs comprising a PDGF aptamer and a VEGF aptamer are provided. Pharmaceutical compositions comprising the aptamers and aptamer constructs are provided, as well as methods of treating conditions using the aptamers and aptamer constructs.
Chi Zhang, Guangzhou CN
|Patent application number
|HEATING APPARATUS FOR VISCOUS BODY AND METHOD FOR USING SAME - A heating apparatus. The heating apparatus further comprises a heating element, and a temperature regulating unit, wherein the temperature regulating unit causes the heater to stop producing heat once a specified temperature has been reached.
Chi Zhang, Cambridge GB
|Patent application number
|Fuel treatment apparatus - An apparatus for treating a fuel is disclosed. The apparatus comprises a channel for fuel to be treated, a photocatalyst situated within the channel so as to be in contact with the fuel passing therethrough, electromagnetic radiation source means for irradiating the catalyst and magnetic field source means for providing a magnetic field to which the fuel is exposed.
Chi Zhang, Hong Kong CN
|Patent application number
|PHASE-INVERTED SIDELOBE-ANNIHILATED OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY - An optical coherent tomographic imaging system includes means for introducing a 180-degree phase inversion in the interference fringes, and generating a two-peak shape point spread function (PSF) in the frequency domain for the interference-based tomographic imaging system. The system further includes means for achieving sharper resolution than the diffraction-limited spectral bandwidth in the tomographic imaging system through subtracting the two-peak shape from the original Gaussian PSF. Means are provided for removing the ghost fringes in the tomographic imaging system, which is introduced by the self-interference between the different layers of the sample arm. The apparatus is configured to realize the real-time super-resolution swept-source optical coherent tomography (OCT) such that the sensitivity of the system is enhanced by suppressing the noise floor in the frequency domain, as well as removing the ghost fringes.