Publisher Correction: The observation of vibrating pear-shapes in radon nuclei.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Evolution of Octupole Deformation in Radium Nuclei from Coulomb Excitation of Radioactive

There is sparse direct experimental evidence that atomic nuclei can exhibit stable "pear" shapes arising from strong octupole correlations. In order to investigate the nature of octupole collectivity in radium isotopes, electric octupole (E3) matrix elements have been determined for transitions in ^{222,228}Ra nuclei using the method of sub-barrier, multistep Coulomb excitation. Beams of the radioactive radium isotopes were provided by the HIE-ISOLDE facility at CERN. The observed pattern of E3 matrix elements for different nuclear transitions is explained by describing ^{222}Ra as pear shaped with stable octupole deformation, while ^{228}Ra behaves like an octupole vibrator.

The observation of vibrating pear-shapes in radon nuclei.

There is a large body of evidence that atomic nuclei can undergo octupole distortion and assume the shape of a pear. This phenomenon is important for measurements of electric-dipole moments of atoms, which would indicate CP violation and hence probe physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. Isotopes of both radon and radium have been identified as candidates for such measurements. Here, we observed the low-lying quantum states in 224Rn and 226Rn by accelerating beams of these radioactive nuclei. We show that radon isotopes undergo octupole vibrations but do not possess static pear-shapes in their ground states. We conclude that radon atoms provide less favourable conditions for the enhancement of a measurable atomic electric-dipole moment.

Enhanced Quadrupole and Octupole Strength in Doubly Magic

The first 2^{+} and 3^{-} states of the doubly magic nucleus ^{132}Sn are populated via safe Coulomb excitation employing the recently commissioned HIE-ISOLDE accelerator at CERN in conjunction with the highly efficient MINIBALL array. The ^{132}Sn ions are accelerated to an energy of 5.49 MeV/nucleon and impinged on a ^{206}Pb target. Deexciting γ rays from the low-lying excited states of the target and the projectile are recorded in coincidence with scattered particles. The reduced transition strengths are determined for the transitions 0_{g.s.}^{+}→2_{1}^{+}, 0_{g.s.}^{+}→3_{1}^{-}, and 2_{1}^{+}→3_{1}^{-} in ^{132}Sn. The results on these states provide crucial information on cross-shell configurations which are determined within large-scale shell-model and Monte Carlo shell-model calculations as well as from random-phase approximation and relativistic random-phase approximation. The locally enhanced B(E2;0_{g.s.}^{+}→2_{1}^{+}) strength is consistent with the microscopic description of the structure of the respective states within all theoretical approaches. The presented results of experiment and theory can be considered to be the first direct verification of the sphericity and double magicity of ^{132}Sn.

Evaluation of blood culture media for the detection of fungi.

The aim of this study was to compare the utility of BACTEC™ Mycosis-IC/F (Mycosis), BACTEC™ Plus Aerobic/F (Aerobic), and BACTEC™ Plus Anaerobic/F (Anaerobic) media in the detection of fungi from simulated (obtained by the inoculation of tested media first with sterile sheep's blood and subsequently with one of 60 clinical yeast isolates) and clinical blood samples, taken during routine diagnostic examination in two hospitals. All tested strains grew on Mycosis as well as Aerobic bottles, and the time to detection obtained for Mycosis was significantly shorter (p < 0.05). The largest differences in the time to positivity was found for Candida glabrata and Cryptococcus neoformans, when Mycosis preceded Aerobic in 20-48 h (mean 35.5 h) and 0.7-64 h (mean 24 h), respectively. On the contrary, C. krusei were detected earlier in Aerobic media. In clinical samples, the detection of C. glabrata was also significantly faster in Mycosis than in Aerobic (29.22 ± 11.48 h compared to 86 ± 40 h). The media complement each other and, in 45% of clinical examination sets, a single positive medium was noted (25% in Mycosis and 19% in Aerobic). The study proved that both Aerobic and Mycosis media serve as the correct condition for the culture of fungi and that they varied significantly in the detection time of clinically important species. This result could suggest that the simultaneous use of Aerobic as well as Mycosis media may improve the time of diagnosis in many patients, especially those infected with C. glabrata or C. neoformans.

The antioxidant activity of BHT and new phenolic compounds PYA and PPA measured by chemiluminescence.

The antioxidative properties of two series of new phenolic, amphiphilic compounds were evaluated using the chemiluminescence (CL) method. 2,2'-Azobis (2-amidinopropane) dihydrochloride (AAPH) was used as a source of free radicals, to obtain high and prolonged CL. Three different kinds of buffers (organic and inorganic) were tested. The CL level varied only slightly depending on the buffer but increased significantly with the pH. Twelve newly synthesised compounds were compared with butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), a commercially used antioxidant. The new antioxidants included two classes of quaternary ammonium salts with a phenol substituent functioning as an antioxidant. The salts were synthesised by quaternarization of pyrrolidine ethyl esters of dihydrocinnamic acid by n-alkoxymethyl bromides (PYA-n) or quaternarization of 2-dimethylaminoethyl esters by n-alkyl bromides (PPA-n). All the tested compounds quenched CL proportionally to their concentrations. In our experimental conditions 8.5 microM BHT quenched 50% of the CL. The PYA and PPA compounds had IC50 two to six times lower than BHT. CL inhibition was proportional to the pH for all antioxidants. The relationships between the structure and activity of the tested compounds are discussed.