The present invention relates to an amphiphilic compound having a dendronic hydrophobic group, a method for preparing the same, and a method for extraction, solubilization, stabilization, or crystallization of a membrane protein by using the same. The use of the compound according to the present invention leads to an excellent membrane protein solubilization effect and a stable storage of a membrane protein in an aqueous solution for a long time, and thus can be utilized for functional analysis and structural analysis of the membrane protein. Especially, the amphiphilic compound having a dendronic hydrophobic group showed very remarkable characteristics in the visualization of protein composites through an electronic microscope. The membrane protein structural and functional analysis is one of the fields of greatest interest in current biology and chemistry, and more than half of the new drugs that are currently being developed are targeted at membrane proteins, and thus the amphiphilic compound of the present invention can be applied to membrane protein structure studies closely related to the development of new drugs.

The present invention discloses a method for product quality control and fingerprint detection of an epimedium brevicornu complex. The method uses high performance liquid chromatography, and can effectively realize the quality control of products containing traditional Chinese medicine components, and especially stable control of the quality of products containing a large quantity of non-traditional Chinese medicine components in formulas. Through step-by-step quality control, product quality fluctuation is reduced and stable quality is ensured. Meanwhile, the method is simple and convenient, does not need additional instruments and standards, saves the cost and is more conducive to actual production.

The present invention discloses a method for product quality control and fingerprint detection of an epimedium brevicornu complex. The method uses high performance liquid chromatography, and can effectively realize the quality control of products containing traditional Chinese medicine components, and especially stable control of the quality of products containing a large quantity of non-traditional Chinese medicine components in formulas. Through step-by-step quality control, product quality fluctuation is reduced and stable quality is ensured. Meanwhile, the method is simple and convenient, does not need additional instruments and standards, saves the cost and is more conducive to actual production.

The present disclosure provides a technique for quantitatively detecting alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activities in seawater and other aquatic environments, based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy by taking 5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indolyl phosphate (BCIP) as a substrate and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as an internal standard. Results show that ALP activity has a good linear correlation with the intensity ratio of a characteristic Raman peak to that of the internal standard peak (600 cm.sup.−1/677 cm.sup.−1) (R.sup.2=0.977). The technique was successfully applied to detect ALP activity of a seawater sample. By extension this technique can also be used in detecting the activity of other microbial extracellular enzymes (e.g., aminopeptidase) in seawater and thus, lays a solid scientific foundation for in-situ detection of the activities of other extracellular enzymes in seawater and other aquatic environments.

An open system pyrolysis of a first hydrocarbon source rock sample obtained from a natural system is performed within a pyrolysis chamber by maintaining the pyrolysis chamber at a substantially constant temperature. Hydrocarbons are recovered from the pyrolysis chamber released by the first hydrocarbon source rock sample. A thermo-vaporization is performed within the pyrolysis chamber on the pyrolyzed sample at a substantially constant temperature. A first hydrocarbon expulsion efficiency of hydrocarbon source rock is determined. A second hydrocarbon rock sample is ground to a grain size less than or equal to or less than 250 micrometers. A second pyrolysis is performed on the ground hydrocarbon source rock sample by maintaining the chamber at a substantially constant temperature. A second hydrocarbon expulsion efficiency of the hydrocarbon source rock in the natural system is determined. The first hydrocarbon expulsion efficiency is verified using the second hydrocarbon expulsion efficiency.

The invention proposes preparing biological samples for spectrometry which contain cell structures and/or whole cells of human or animal origin (e.g. thin human and animal tissue sections) or prokaryotes (e.g. microorganisms), and which require constant relative humidity, in a temperature-controlled gas volume whose humidity is determined by a saturated substance solution, for example a suitable salt solution. The invention exploits a physico-chemical phenomenon called “deliquescence”, which manifests itself by keeping the relative humidity above the saturated substance solution constant with a high degree of precision when a specified temperature is maintained. Pure succinic acid exhibits deliquescence at approx. 99% relative humidity, for example. Since an enormous variety of deliquescent salts and other suitable substances are available, it is possible to find the suitable substance for almost any desired relative humidity, with adjustment of the temperature, where necessary.

The invention proposes preparing biological samples for spectrometry which contain cell structures and/or whole cells of human or animal origin (e.g. thin human and animal tissue sections) or prokaryotes (e.g. microorganisms), and which require constant relative humidity, in a temperature-controlled gas volume whose humidity is determined by a saturated substance solution, for example a suitable salt solution. The invention exploits a physico-chemical phenomenon called “deliquescence”, which manifests itself by keeping the relative humidity above the saturated substance solution constant with a high degree of precision when a specified temperature is maintained. Pure succinic acid exhibits deliquescence at approx. 99% relative humidity, for example. Since an enormous variety of deliquescent salts and other suitable substances are available, it is possible to find the suitable substance for almost any desired relative humidity, with adjustment of the temperature, where necessary.

A method of analysing granular material in a slurry, the method comprising: compacting the granular material in the slurry to form one or more pucks; irradiating said pucks with X-Ray radiation and detecting X-ray energy transmitted through said one or more irradiated pucks; irradiating a reference material with X-Ray radiation, said reference material having known material characteristics and detecting X-ray energy transmitted through said reference material; comparing X-ray energy transmission through said one or more pucks with the reference material to compute, using a processing unit, one or more particle characteristics of the granular material in the one or more pucks.

An active/resilient grinding media inside a tube containing a sample is oscillated rapidly by a homogenizer so that the active media is driven in a first direction until it impacts a first end of the tube, which causes it to deform and store an energy charge as it decelerates and stops, and it then accelerates rapidly in the second opposite direction under the discharging force of the stored energy toward the opposite second end of the tube. This cycle of the active media decelerating/charging and then discharging/accelerating is repeated throughout the entire oscillatory processing of the sample. The result is much higher velocities of the active media and therefore much greater impact forces when the sample and active media collide, producing increased efficiency in disruption and size-reduction of the sample particles.

The present invention relates to a clearing technique which uses a solution containing at least one of a compound having a delipidation ability, a compound having a biochrome decoloring ability, a compound having a decalcification ability, a compound having a refractive index adjusting ability, and a compound having a tissue swelling ability. The clearing technique is suitable for use in high-throughput and low-magnification imaging which involves a simple process.