Impedance‐based viscoelastic flow cytometry

Elastic nature of the viscoelastic fluids induces lateral migration of particles into a single streamline and can be used by microfluidic based flow cytometry devices. In this study, we investigated focusing efficiency of polyethylene oxide based viscoelastic solutions at varying ionic concentration to demonstrate their use in impedimetric particle characterization systems. Rheological properties of the viscoelastic fluid and particle focusing performance are not affected by ionic concentration. We investigated the viscoelastic focusing dynamics using polystyrene (PS) beads and human red blood cells (RBCs) suspended in the viscoelastic fluid. Elasto‐inertial focusing of PS beads was achieved with the combination of inertial and viscoelastic effects. RBCs were aligned along the channel centerline in parachute shape which yielded consistent impedimetric signals. We compared our impedance‐based microfluidic flow cytometry results for RBCs and PS beads by analyzing particle transit time and peak amplitude at varying viscoelastic focusing conditions obtained at different flow rates. We showed that single orientation, single train focusing of nonspherical RBCs can be achieved with polyethylene oxide based viscoelastic solution that has been shown to be a good candidate as a carrier fluid for impedance cytometry.     

Sunlight-induced photocatalytic degradation of acetaminophen over efficient carbon doped TiO2 (CTiO2) nanoparticles

Carbon doped titanium oxide (CTiO₂) photocatalyst was successfully synthesized by the sol–gel method. The crystal structure, surface morphology, and optical properties of CTiO₂ have been characterized by X-ray diffraction, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area (S_BET), scanning electron microscope, UV–Vis, X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), Fourier transform infrared and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The photocatalytic degradation of acetaminophen (AMP) in aqueous solution, seawater, and polluted seawater has been investigated by using the synthesized photocatalyst under irradiation of UV and natural sunlight. The effectiveness of CTiO₂ compared to pure TiO₂ toward the photocatalytic removal of AMP was significantly observed. The optimized conditions including catalyst dose, initial concentration of AMP and solution pH were also studied for effective photocatalytic removal. The highest degradation rate was obtained when 2.0 g L^?1 of the catalyst was used at pH 7. The kinetic results revealed that the photocatalytic degradation of AMP using CTiO₂ obeyed a pseudo-first-order reaction kinetics.

     

Chemical Epigenetics: The Impact of Chemical and Chemical Biology Techniques on Bromodomain Target Validation

Epigenetics is currently the focus of intense research interest across a broad range of disciplines due to its importance in a multitude of biological processes and disease states. Epigenetic functions result partly from modification of the nucleobases in DNA and RNA, and/or post‐translational modifications of histone proteins. These modifications are dynamic, with cellular machinery identified to modulate and interpret the marks. Our focus is on bromodomains, which bind to acetylated lysine residues. Progress in the study of bromodomains, and the development of bromodomain ligands, has been rapid. These advances have been underpinned by many disciplines, but chemistry and chemical biology have undoubtedly played a significant role. Herein, we review the key chemistry and chemical biology approaches that have furthered our study of bromodomains, enabled the development of bromodomain ligands, and played a critical role in the validation of bromodomains as therapeutic targets.     

Piperidinium Hydrogen Sulfate (PHS) as an Efficient Ionic Liquid Catalyst for the Synthesis of Imidazole Derivative under Solvent‐Free Condition

Piperidinium hydrogen sulfate is used as a very important new catalyst for the synthesis of the biologically active compounds from a series of multi‐substituted imidazole components by the simple reaction of benzyl with different aromatic aldehydes, ammonium acetate, and phenethylamine or butylamine as amine derivatives. The key merits of this method are very shorter reaction times, excellent yield, and ease of stabilization. Furthermore, the produced products can be purified by a non‐chromatographic technique, and the catalyst is reusable. All of these new synthesized components have been characterized and checked from spectral data: IR, ¹H‐NMR, and ¹³C‐NMR spectra and elemental analyses.     

Microwave-assisted catalytic oxidative desulfurization of gasoil fuel using synthesized CuO-ZnO nanocomposites

Recently,organosulfur removal from liquid petroleum fuels is very significant aspect of environment protecting and fuel cell requests.Therefore,improved approaches to remove sulfur are still essential.In the present work,a simple catalytic oxidative desulfurization(CODS)system for Iraqi gasoil fraction has been successfully developed using CuO-ZnO nanocomposites as catalysts,and H_2O_2 as oxidant under microwave irradiation.The main reaction parameters influencing sulfur conversion including microwave power,irradiation time,catalyst dosage and H_2O_2 to gasoil volume ratio have been investigated.The CuO-ZnO nanocomposites was synthesized with different weight ratios and characterized by XRD,FE-SEM,AFM and BET surface area methods.The results reveal that,high sulfur conversion(93%)has been achieved under suitable conditions of microwave CODS as follows:microwave power of 540 W,irradiation time of 15 min,catalyst dosage of 8 g/L(0.4 g),and H_2O_2:gasoil volume ratio of 0.3.The catalyst reusability shows that the synthesized catalyst can be reused five times without an important loss in its activity.     

Magneto-Priming Improved Nutraceutical Potential and Antimicrobial Activity of Momordica charantia L. Without Affecting Nutritive Value

The need for some economic strategies for increased growth and nutraceuticals of medicinal plants is well acknowledged now. It was hypothesized that external magnetic field treatment (MFT) of seeds affecting internal magnet of cells may affect growth and metabolism. In this study, seeds were subjected to pre-sowing magnetic field (50 mT at 5 mm for 5 s). At vegetative stage, the leaf growth, chlorophyll content, catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD), amino acids, proteins, flavonoids, soluble sugars, total soluble phenolics, carotenoids, anthocyanins, phenolic profile (HPLC based), and antimicrobial activity of leaves (in terms of the minimum inhibitory concentration against Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) were studied. Yield was evaluated for nutritive components in fruit (peel+pulp) and peel. MFT improved germination percentage, growth, leaf chlorophyll, antimicrobial activity, peel amino acids, phenolics, and POD with negligible effect on fruit nutritive value. Moreover, photosynthetic pigments and cinnamic acid exhibited direct correlation with antimicrobial potential against both pathogens. However, sinapic acid showed positive correlation against Staphylococcus aureus only. Cinnamic acid, coumaric acid, syringic acid, and quercetin were in direct correlation against Pseudomonas aeruginosa; it was directly correlated with total flavonoids too. In conclusion, magnetic field can be used to manipulate plant cell metabolism promising improvement of growth, antimicrobial activity, and phenolics of interest.

     

Computational investigations of mechanical and dynamical properties of gold-based compounds (X3Au,X = Ti,Zr and V)

The structural, elastic, electronic and phonon properties of X₃Au (X?=?Ti, Zr and V) compounds in the A15 structure were obtained in the framework of the density functional theory (DFT) within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA). The equilibrium lattice constants, bulk modulus and elastic constants were calculated. The calculation of elastic constants revealed that V₃Au has the highest hardness nature and incompressibility along the x-axis among them. The computed elastic constants also provided information about the ductility of X₃Au compounds which were predicted using Pugh's criteria. The results indicated that all three compounds have ductile nature. The density of states calculations revealed that electrons of Ti, Zr and V provide most contribution to the conductivity of the compounds and thus cause a metallic bonding. The investigation of stability via phonon spectra of compounds showed that these compounds are dynamically stable in the A15 structure.     

Influence of Non-linear Radiation Heat Flux on Rotating Maxwell Fluid over a Deformable Surface: A Numerical Study

Mathematical model for Maxwell fluid flow in rotating frame induced by an isothermal stretching wall is explored numerically. Scale analysis based boundary layer approximations are applied to simplify the conservation relations which are later converted to similar forms via appropriate substitutions. A numerical approach is utilized to derive similarity solutions for broad range of Deborah number. The results predict that velocity distributions are inversely proportional to the stress relaxation time. This outcome is different from that observed for the elastic parameter of second grade fluid. Unlike non-rotating frame, the solution curves are oscillatory decaying functions of similarity variable. As angular velocity enlarges, temperature rises and significant drop in the heat transfer coefficient occurs. We note that the wall slope of temperature has an asymptotically decaying profile against the wall to ambient ratio parameter. From the qualitative view point, temperature ratio parameter and radiation parameter have similar effect on the thermal boundary layer. Furthermore, radiation parameter has a definite role in improving the cooling process of the stretching boundary.A comparative study of current numerical computations and those from the existing studies is also presented in a limiting case. To our knowledge, the phenomenon of non-linear radiation in rotating viscoelastic flow due to linearly stretched plate is just modeled here.     

Soliton solutions and stability analysis for some conformable nonlinear partial differential equations in mathematical physics

This research presents soliton solutions and stability analysis to some conformable nonlinear partial differential equations (CNPDEs). The CNPDEs equations in this paper are conformable Cahn–Allen and conformable Zoomeron equations. The powerful sine-Gordon method is used to carry out the soliton solutions for these equations. The aspects of stability analysis for the considered equations is investigated using the linear stability technique. The sine-Gordon method proves to be efficient and effective for the extraction of soliton solutions for different types of CNPDEs.     

Lie symmetry analysis and explicit solutions for the time fractional generalized Burgers–Huxley equation

Optical and Quantum Electronics - Investigated in this paper is the modified Hirota equation with variable coefficients, which can describe the amplification or absorption of pulses propagating in...