Writing a scientific journal assignment

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Writing a scientific journal assignment

Assignment due: 28-04-2023

Aims

To prepare and complete a scientific paper, in the style of fictitious journal “The Huddersfield Journal of Science” using the template provided.

To process data both statistically and graphically, provided by the fictitious laboratory “group” that you are part of as the project supervisor.

To suggest three real-world journal referees, who would be suitable to review the content of your scientific paper, giving justifications to why these reviewers were chosen.

To complete the journal upload document as if this was a real journal submission.

Background

You work as part of a private sector research group (Huddersfield Analytical) involved in the analysis of forensic samples, notably samples of ‘street drugs’. A range of different street drugs have been provided to you by the local police force and you have been tasked with quantifying these substances using Liquid-Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS).

Your work has proven very quick and effective, so much so that your manager has asked you to produce a scientific paper based on your findings and submit it to ‘The Huddersfield Journal of Science’.

Additionally, from the range of street drugs that you have analysed your manager suggests that you may be able to make links through statistical processing to see if there are any significantly linked samples, as this may help with deciding if these materials came from the same distribution chain or not.

Your group wants to investigate the following:

Have the methods of quantification for cannabis, cocaine, and MDMA worked well?

Which of the three quantification methods performed the best?

Based on the street samples, can any links be made them to determine if a common distributor be found – i.e. if drugs are statistically linked did they come from the same distributor?

Can a seized unknown sample be linked with any of the distribution chains?

Your scientific paper should include:

At least one calibration plot.

At least one table of data.

At least one statistical comparison between your data.

Criteria

Your scientific paper should include the following components at minimum, additional sections may be needed to be added based on the journal’s template.

Abstract

What did you study, what methods were used, what were your findings, what are your conclusions and what is the potential impact of your work?

Covered in SMA0004 lecture and tutorial (week 9)

Graphical Abstract

An eye-catching graphic, that summarises your research – room for artistic license.

Covered in SMA0004 lecture and tutorial (week 8)

Introduction

What is known, what is unknown, what is the gap (including your hypothesis)

Consider what is being studied and its potential impacts

Covered in SMA0004 lecture and tutorial (week 7)

Experimental

A concise step-through guide of how the results were obtained and processed.

Covered in SMA0004 lecture and tutorial (week 9)

Results and Discussion

Refer to your findings (tables/graphics) explain what they mean, how they link to your research hypothesis, justify your approach to getting to these results and be critical about your method.

Covered in SMA0004 lecture and tutorial (week 8)

Conclusions

Summarised key findings of the work, potential impacts, the gap in the literature that has been filled and set new research questions.

Covered in SMA0004 lecture and tutorial (week 9)

References

APA 7th or RSC style only, consistency is key!

Minimum of 30 references, no upper limit so long as it backs up your arguments.

Covered in SMA0004 lecture and tutorial (week 6)

The journals template can be found in the same folder as the assignment in Brightspace. It is recommended that you start preparing your scientific paper in Microsoft Word now, then in the final weeks you will be able fit it to the journal template.

The final paper should be a minimum of 5 pages and a maximum of 8 pages, this includes all tables, figures and your reference list. Make sure that this is put in the template as soon as you have all your sections together, sometimes 8 pages in a standard word document, becomes 5-6 when placed in a journal template!

Details and Data for the assignment

Laboratory Address:

Huddersfield Analytical, Firth Street, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, HD1 3BD, UK.

Laboratory members and roles:

Team leader: Dr L.M. Morris; Project administration, Funding acquisition, Writing – Review & Editing.

Project supervisor: Your Name; Investigation, Formal analysis, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – Original Draft.

Analyst 1: Mrs P.S. Owens; Conceptualization, Methodology, Software.

Analyst 2: Mr J. Smith; Resources, Data Curation, Investigation.

Analyst 3: Mr R.B. Williams; Resources, Data Curation, Investigation.

Location of various drug seizures from across the Yorkshire area.

 

Figure 1. Areas where drug samples have been recovered by local police forces across Yorkshire and Lancashire. A) Huddersfield, B) Dewsbury, C) Sheffield, D) Manchester, E) Bradford, F) Leeds.

 

Analysis

Chemicals:

The following materials were obtained from Merck; cocaine (CRM, 99.9999%), ∆9-THC (99.999%, for cannabis testing), MDMA (99.999%), water (MS Grade, 99.999%), and acetonitrile (MS Grade, 99.999%).

Instrumentation and conditions:

All analysis was performed using a Waters Acquity UPLC system, coupled with a Waters TQ-Detector. Autosampler injections of 10 µL for each solvent were made directly into a C18 column (2.1 x 150 mm, 1.8 µm), that was maintained at 50 °C within a column oven. A flow rate of 400 µL min-1 was used, following a gradient programme of 10% B (acetonitrile) increasing to 95% by the end of the programme, with solvent A being pure water.

The mass spectrometer that was used for ion confirmation used the following parameters: cone voltage of 25 V, 15 eV collision energy, a 250 °C desolvation temperature, 4 LPM desolvation nitrogen gas flow. Full ion scans from 15 – 1500 m/z were performed.

Calibration procedure:

Samples of cocaine, ∆9-THC, and MDMA were calibrated over the range 0-100 ppm by using standard materials and diluting them with acetonitrile.

Analysis of street drugs

Six samples from around Yorkshire and Lancashire were donated by local police forces from Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Sheffield, Manchester, Bradford, and Leeds. Each donation contained a sample of suspected cocaine, cannabis, and MDMA.

These samples were diluted in acetonitrile, comparable to the calibration materials and injected five times into the LC-MS system to evaluate concentrations of the drugs in each sample analysed.

Analysis of an unknown sample

A final unknown batch containing cocaine, cannabis, and MDMA were donated by West Yorkshire police for analysis in an attempt to determine if these materials may have linked with any of the tested samples. As previous, samples were diluted in acetonitrile and injected into the LC-MS system.

Data Processing:

 

*** NB. You will decide how to process the data for your paper ***

 

 

 

 

 

 

Calibration data

 

Table 1. LC-MS cocaine calibration data

Cocaine Conc. (ppm)

Reading 1 (CPS)

Reading 2 (CPS)

Reading 3 (CPS)

Reading 4 (CPS)

Reading 5 (CPS)

Average (CPS)

0

0.43

-0.04

0.48

0.83

1.13

 

20

603.46

601.06

604.03

606.70

618.17

 

40

1183.83

1187.45

1192.62

1197.58

1208.99

 

60

1822.43

1811.18

1804.24

1830.73

1838.40

 

80

2414.20

2391.69

2383.36

2384.77

2389.08

 

100

3040.71

3046.99

3039.19

3020.90

3027.81

 

 

Table 2. LC-MS ∆9-THC calibration data

THC Conc. (ppm)

Reading 1 (CPS)

Reading 2 (CPS)

Reading 3 (CPS)

Reading 4 (CPS)

Reading 5 (CPS)

Average

(CPS)

0

1.00

0.72

0.37

0.16

0.36

 

20

405.54

407.34

411.92

418.13

406.71

 

40

782.00

796.84

794.95

789.16

800.39

 

60

1217.07

1238.46

1202.17

1224.76

1228.90

 

80

1603.64

1586.98

1605.92

1604.68

1595.59

 

100

2021.01

2021.78

2034.81

2043.61

2027.27

 

 

MDMA Conc. (ppm)

Reading 1 (CPS)

Reading 2 (CPS)

Reading 3 (CPS)

Reading 4 (CPS)

Reading 5 (CPS)

Average

(CPS)

0

0.20

0.74

0.05

0.16

1.03

 

20

708.34

707.26

717.40

705.22

706.57

 

40

1402.51

1401.07

1384.51

1389.12

1386.23

 

60

2104.66

2110.10

2108.43

2114.89

2139.43

 

80

2780.64

2787.64

2811.86

2811.29

2785.98

 

100

3524.12

3533.37

3535.65

3528.65

3531.72

 

Table 3. LC-MS MDMA calibration data

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drug seizure data

Table 4. LC-MS data for cocaine seizures across Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Reading Number

Huddersfield

(CPS)

Dewsbury

(CPS)

Sheffield

(CPS)

Manchester

(CPS)

Bradford

(CPS)

Leeds

(CPS)

1

634.85

594.81

775.22

786.33

796.79

322.01

2

606.33

609.58

775.47

786.77

798.59

329.84

3

608.05

606.47

762.88

753.98

769.04

349.15

4

643.91

582.57

795.41

797.61

790.39

312.02

5

627.23

597.16

778.97

779.69

768.80

399.26

 

Table 6. LC-MS data for ∆9-THC seizures across Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Reading Number

Huddersfield

(CPS)

Dewsbury

(CPS)

Sheffield

(CPS)

Manchester

(CPS)

Bradford

(CPS)

Leeds

(CPS)

1

846.62

1006.47

1013.20

1015.29

1643.58

1417.77

2

808.64

1020.43

1045.53

1041.48

1636.57

1488.94

3

806.29

1034.91

1009.59

1006.87

1664.02

1496.07

4

803.24

1020.93

1046.22

1037.44

1655.54

1457.68

5

835.73

1005.80

1040.83

1044.44

1678.93

1411.05

 

Table 7. LC-MS data for MDMA seizures across Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Reading Number

Huddersfield

(CPS)

Dewsbury

(CPS)

Sheffield

(CPS)

Manchester

(CPS)

Bradford

(CPS)

Leeds

(CPS)

1

1320.95

1341.00

1224.80

2824.74

1262.41

1213.41

2

1219.60

1235.79

1309.39

2846.02

1294.45

1223.02

3

1330.25

1220.27

1299.07

2823.30

1246.43

1214.21

4

1233.07

1339.07

1246.34

2829.47

1242.84

1290.22

5

1237.59

1208.22

1316.78

2849.57

1211.46

1279.40

 

Table 8. LC-MS data for unknown seizures across Yorkshire and Lancashire for samples of cocaine, ∆9-THC, and MDMA.

Reading Number

Cocaine

(CPS)

∆9-THC (CPS)

MDMA (CPS)

1

799.03

1025.43

2846.90

2

770.05

1015.22

2824.72

3

774.36

1013.07

2807.77

4

775.60

1015.94

2812.41

5

799.67

1040.37

2808.27