A new kinetic spectrophotometric method for the determination of major metabolite of heroin in biological samples

This study describes a simple,rapid and selective catalytic kinetic spectrophotometric method for the determination of 6- monoacetylmorphine（6-MAM） as major metabolite of heroin in biological samples.The method is based upon the catalytic effect of 6-MAM on the oxidation of Janus Green by bromate in acid media.The reaction was followed spectrophotometrically by measuring the decrease in absorbance of Janus Green at 618 nm.The dependence of sensitivity on the reaction variables was studied.Under optimum conditions,two linear calibration curves over the range 0.1-1.0μg mL^-1 and 1.0-34.0μg mL^-1 of 6- MAM were obtained.The detection limit was 1.2×10²μg mL^-1 of 6-MAM.The relative standard deviations for six replicate determinations of 0.8 and 5.0μg mL^-1 of 6-MAM were 1.4 and 1.1%respectively.The effect of various species commonly associated with heroin in real samples was also investigated.The proposed method was successfully applied in human urine and serum samples with satisfactory results.     

4E analysis and tri-objective optimization of a triple-pressure combined cycle power plant with combustion chamber steam injection to control NOx emission

This article presents a novel triple-pressure combined cycle power plant (CCPP) with a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) configured with heat exchangers of multiple pressure levels, same as the real case. In addition, combustion chamber steam injection is added to the top cycle in order to reduce hazardous emissions. The research investigates energy, exergy, economic, and environmental aspects of the system to initiate sustainable development in said areas. A thorough parametric study is carried out to evaluate the effects of steam injection and other decision variable on emissions and system performance. Then, the total cost rate and the CO₂ index are minimized while maximizing the second law efficiency via a tri-objective optimization using the genetic algorithm. The outcome of the economic analysis is that the HRSG has the maximum total cost rate among all the components, namely 0.1673 $/s. The environmental impact  assessments indicate that the CO₂ and NO emission has considerable molar fractions of 0.035 and 6.88?×?10^?4, respectively. As a result of the tri-objective optimization, a 3D Pareto Frontier is presented, which pointed out the maximum attainable exergy efficiency is 50.32%, as well as the minimum total cost rates of 8.04 $/s and CO₂ index of 0.34 kg/kWh. Finally, the scatter distribution of major decision variables revealed the optimum range of decision variables in which the optimum points of the Pareto Frontier are obtained. Accordingly, the scatter distribution showed that 46 kg s^?1 is the optimum value for steam injection flow rate in terms of efficiency, cost and emission optimization.

     

Experimental and theoretical characterization of 3-amino-1-phenyl-2-buten-1-onato ligand and its copper(II) and nickel(II) complexes: synthesis, characterization, X-ray structures, DFT and TDDFT studies

This article presents a combined experimental and computational investigation of 3-amino-1-phenyl-2-buten-1-onato, APBO ligand and its copper(II) and nickel(II) complexes. APBO is an unsymmetrical, bidentate and monoanionic ligand with different coordinating atoms (N,O). A comparison among different possible conformers of the ligand has been carried out using density functional theory (DFT) method at the B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p) level. It was demonstrated that two factors control stability of the compounds as hydrogen bonding (conventional and nonconventional) and resonance effect. The effectiveness of each of these parameters on the stability of ligands is discussed. The prepared homoleptic complexes of [Ni(APBO)₂] and [Cu(APBO)₂] were characterized with IR, NMR, UV–Vis spectroscopic techniques. The X-ray crystallography of [Ni(APBO)₂] demonstrated that the bidentate APBO binds to the metal center in trans fashion and the geometry around the nickel atom is square planar. The experimental studies on the complexes were accompanied computationally by the DFT and time-dependent DFT calculations.     

Novel Conductive PANI/Hydrophilic Thiacalix[4]areneNanocomposites: Synthesis,Characterization andInvestigation of Properties简

Nanocomposites of polyaniline(PANI) and the macrocycle thiacalix[4]arene tetra sulfonate(TCAS) were successfully synthesized in feed ratios of 1:0.25, 1:0.50 and 1:0.75 by three prevail synthetic methods, i.e. in situ polymerization, emulsion polymerization and solution casting technique. The structures of the nanocomposites were confirmed by FTIR, UV-Vis, XRD, SEM, and TEM techniques. The conductivity was measured by a four probe method. The conductivity was recorded to be as high as 105 × 10 2S cm 1for the nanocomposite with a nanometer size structure and homogeneously distributed morphology. The electroactivity of the nanocomposites was approved by cyclic voltammetry(CV) and impedance spectroscopy technique(EIS). The antioxidant ability and thermal property of the composites were further studied. Preliminary studies have evidenced the production of conductive nanocomposites with good thermal property and relatively good solubility in N-methyl 2-pyrrolidone(NMP), with the antioxidant activity reaching up to 80%.     

Finite-time synchronization control for a class of perturbed nonlinear systems with fixed convergence time and hysteresis quantizer: applied to Genesio–Tesi chaotic system

In the present article, a terminal sliding mode control strategy has been proposed in order to address the synchronization problem for a class of perturbed nonlinear systems with fixed convergence time and input quantization. The proposed protocol guarantees the fixed-time convergence of the sliding manifold to the origin, which means that the convergence time of the proposed sliding manifold does not change on the variations of initial values, different from typical control methods. Here, the hysteresis quantizer, as a specific type of quantizer with nonlinear sector-bounded, is applied in order to quantize the input signal. The proposed quantized control scheme vigorously prevents the potential adverse chattering phenomenon which is experienced in the common quantization methods. The proposed controller does not need the limiting criteria related to considered parameters of quantization compared to recent control approaches. Finally, the designed controller is implemented on the perturbed Genesio–Tesi (G–T) chaotic systems to verify effectiveness and strength of the proposed method.

     

A LBM–DEM solver for fast discrete particle simulation of particle–fluid flows

The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) for simulating fluid phases was coupled with the discrete element method (DEM) for studying solid phases to formulate a novel solver for fast discrete particle simulation (DPS) of particle–fluid flows. The fluid hydrodynamics was obtained by solving LBM equations instead of solving the Navier–Stokes equation by the finite volume method (FVM). Interparticle and particle–wall collisions were determined by DEM. The new DPS solver was validated by simulating a three-dimensional gas–solid bubbling fluidized bed. The new solver was found to yield results faster than its FVM–DEM counterpart, with the increase in the domain-averaged gas volume fraction. Additionally, the scalability of the LBM–DEM DPS solver was superior to that of the FVM–DEM DPS solver in parallel computing. Thus, the LBM–DEM DPS solver is highly suitable for use in simulating dilute and large-scale particle–fluid flows.     

Mass flow rate prediction of pressure–temperature-driven gas flows through micro/nanoscale channels

In this paper, we study mass flow rate of rarefied gas flow through micro/nanoscale channels under simultaneous thermal and pressure gradients using the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method. We first compare our DSMC solutions for mass flow rate of pure temperature-driven flow with those of Boltzmann-Krook-Walender equation and Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook solutions. Then, we focus on pressure–temperature-driven flows. The effects of different parameters such as flow rarefaction, channel pressure ratio, wall temperature gradient and flow bulk temperature on the thermal mass flow rate of the pressure–temperature-driven flow are examined. Based on our analysis, we propose a correlated relation that expresses normalized mass flow rate increment due to thermal creep as a function of flow rarefaction, normalized wall temperature gradient and pressure ratio over a wide range of Knudsen number. We examine our predictive relation by simulation of pressure-driven flows under uniform wall heat flux (UWH) boundary condition. Walls under UWH condition have non-uniform temperature distribution, that is, thermal creep effects exist. Our investigation shows that developed analytical relation could predict mass flow rate of rarefied pressure-driven gas flows under UWH condition at early transition regime, that is, up to Knudsen numbers of 0.5.     

Statistical analysis of instantaneous turbulent heat transfer in circular pipe flows

Turbulent heat transfer in circular pipe flow with constant heat flux on the wall is investigated numerically via Large Eddy Simulations for frictional Reynolds number Re _τ  = 180 and for Prandtl numbers in the range 0.1 ≤ Pr ≤ 1.0. In our simulations we employ a second-order finite difference scheme, combined with a projection method for the pressure, on a collocated grid in cylindrical coordinates. The predicted statistical properties of the velocity and temperature fields show good agreement with available data from direct numerical simulations. Further, we study the local thermal flow structures for different Prandtl numbers. As expected, our simulations predict that by reducing the Prandtl number, the range of variations in the local heat transfer and the Nusselt number decrease. Moreover, the thermal flow structures smear in the flow and become larger in size with less sharpness, especially in the vicinity of the wall. In order to characterize the local instantaneous heat transfer, probability density functions (PDFs) for the instantaneous Nusselt number are derived for different Prandtl number. Also, it is shown that these PDFs are actually scaled by the square root of the Prandtl number, so that a single PDF can be employed for all Prandtl numbers. The curve fits of the PDFs are presented in two forms of log-normal and skewed Gaussian distributions.     

An Efficient Synthesis of 8-Hydroxy-6,7-dimethoxy-3-methylisocoumarin (6-O-methylreticulol)

An efficient synthesis of 8-hydroxy-6,7-dimethoxy-3-methylisocoumarin (6-O-methylreticulol), a metabolite of several fungal species possessing phosphodiesterase inhibitor, topoisomerase I inhibitor activities and antitumor efficacy, has been described. 3,4,5-Trimethoxyhomophthalic acid was refluxed with acetic anhydride in dry pyridine and the resulting 2,3,4-trimethoxy-6-(2-oxopropyl)benzoic acid was smoothly cyclodehydrated to 6,7,8-trimethoxy-3-methylisocoumarin using acetic anhydride. Regioselective demethylation of the latter yielded the 6-O-methylreticulol. __________ Published in Khimiya Geterotsiklicheskikh Soedinenii, No. 11, pp. 1644–1648, November, 2005.