Analysis of new psychoactive substances in human urine by ultra‐high performance supercritical fluid and liquid chromatography: Validation and comparison

New psychoactive substances represent serious social and health problem as tens of new compounds are detected in Europe annually. They often show structural proximity or even isomerism, which complicates their analysis. Two methods based on ultra high performance supercritical fluid chromatography and ultra high performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometric detection were validated and compared. A simple dilute‐filter‐and‐shoot protocol utilizing propan‐2‐ol or methanol for supercritical fluid or liquid chromatography, respectively, was proposed to detect and quantify 15 cathinones and phenethylamines in human urine. Both methods offered fast separation (<3 min) and short total analysis time. Precision was well <15% with a few exceptions in liquid chromatography. Limits of detection in urine ranged from 0.01 to 2.3 ng/mL, except for cathinone (5 ng/mL) in supercritical fluid chromatography. Nevertheless, this technique distinguished all analytes including four pairs of isomers, while liquid chromatography was unable to resolve fluoromethcathinone regioisomers. Concerning matrix effects and recoveries, supercritical fluid chromatography produced more uniform results for different compounds and at different concentration levels. This work demonstrates the performance and reliability of supercritical fluid chromatography and corroborates its applicability as an alternative tool for analysis of new psychoactive substances in biological matrixes.     

卷积神经网络用于近红外光谱古筝面板木材分级

目前,我国乐器制作行业在古筝面板用木材等级的筛选上主要依赖于技师主观评判,但此法缺少科学理论的依据,效率低,客观性及出材率的提高等方面受到限制,无法满足乐器市场的大量需求。实现古筝面板用木材快速、智能化的分级工作是一个急需解决的课题。近红外光谱非常适用于测量含氢的有机物质。古筝面板木材主要化学成分的化学键均由含氢基团组成,不同等级板材的化学成分存在差异,这些差异反映在近红外光谱中,为判断木材等级提供了可能。同时卷积神经网络对非线性数据具有较强的特征提取能力,所以提出一种应用卷积神经网络模型对光谱数据进行分析的方法,进而判别木材的等级。应用了Savitzky Golay一阶、二阶微分两种预处理方法和核主成分分析、连续投影算法两种数据压缩方法,通过所设计的卷积神经网络模型以样本识别准确率和模型构建过程中的损失值作为判定指标选出最佳预处理和数据压缩方法。为了提高模型提取分析光谱数据的能力和避免过拟合现象,应用了多通道卷积核、批量归一化和early stopping策略,将通过两层卷积层提取的特征信息送入全连接层,从而充分提取剩余信息,通过Softmax函数获得板材的最终预测等级,从而确定了最终模型。最终Savitzky Golay一阶微分和核主成分分析为最佳数据处理方法,同时得出用于区分不同等级的古筝面板用木材的主要关键谱带,分别为1 163~1 243, 1 346~1 375和1 525~1 584 nm。将该模型应用于测试集样本,古筝面板用木材的等级识别准确率为95.5%。实验结果表明所提出的方法可以高效地处理光谱数据,有效识别区分不同等级的古筝面板用木材的关键特征,从而为广阔的乐器市场提供一定的技术支持。     

Definition and detection of data-based uniqueness in evaluating bilinear (two-way) chemical measurements

Multivariate curve resolution methods, frequently used in analyzing bilinear data sets, result in ambiguous decomposition in general. Implementing the adequate constraints may lead to reduce the so-called rotational ambiguity drastically, and in the most favorable cases to the unique solution. However, in some special cases, non-negativity constraint as minimal information of the system is a sufficient condition to resolve profiles uniquely. Although, several studies on exploring the uniqueness of the bilinear non-negatively constrained multivariate curve resolution methods have been made in the literature, it has still remained a mysterious question. In 1995, Manne published his profile-based theorems giving the necessary and sufficient conditions of the unique resolution. In this study, a new term, i.e., data-based uniqueness is defined and investigated in details, and a general procedure is suggested for detection of uniquely recovered profile(s) on the basis of data set structure in the abstract space. Close inspection of Borgen plots of these data sets leads to realize the comprehensive information of local rank, and these argumentations furnish a basis for data-based uniqueness theorem. The reported phenomenon and its exploration is a new stage (it can be said fundament) in understanding and describing the bilinear (matrix-type) chemical data in general.     

Effect of chemical parameters on pyrene degradation in soil in a pulsed discharge plasma system

Degradation of pyrene in soil in a net-to-net pulsed discharge plasma (PDP) system was reviewed. Effect of main chemical parameters, including air flow rate, pyrene concentration, initial pH and soil moisture content on pyrene degradation was examined. The obtained results show that 87.9% of pyrene could be removed under the condition of 60 min reaction; increasing of air flow rate within 1 L min⁻¹ was favorable for degradation; pyrene removal was decreased with the increase of initial pyrene concentration; oxidation of pyrene was more evident in acidic soil; enhancement of soil moisture content has no benefit on pyrene degradation.     

Fluorescence properties of riboflavin-functionalized mesoporous silica SBA-15 and riboflavin solutions in presence of different metal and organic cations

Riboflavin was covalently linked to mesoporous SBA-15 silica surface via grafting technique. Then fluorescence properties of the system obtained were analyzed in the presence of several metal and organic cations. Both quenching and strengthening of fluorescence as well as significant changes in the maximum fluorescence wavelength were observed. The results were compared with absorption and fluorescence data obtained for riboflavin water solutions.     

Crosslinked poly(ethylene oxide) containing siloxanes fabricated through thiol‐ene photochemistry

Homogenous amphiphilic crosslinked polymer films comprising of poly(ethylene oxide) and polysiloxane were synthesized utilizing thiol‐ene “ click ” photochemistry. A systematic variation in polymer composition was Carried out to obtain high quality films with varied amount of siloxane and poly(ethylene oxide). These films showed improved gas separation performance with high gas permeabilities with good CO₂/N₂ selectivity. Furthermore, the resulting films were also tested for its biocompatibility, as a carrier media which allow human adult mesenchymal stem cells to retain their capacity for osteoblastic differentiation after transplantation. The obtained crosslinked films were characterized using differential scanning calorimetry, dynamic mechanical analysis, thermogravimetric analysis, FTIR, Raman‐IR , and small angle X‐ray scattering. The synthesis ease and commercial availability of the starting materials suggests that these new crosslinked polymer networks could find applications in wide range of applications. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2015 , 53, 1548–1557     

Nonlinear frequency response analysis: a recent review and perspectives

The nonlinear frequency response analysis (NFRA) can be seen as an extension of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. NFRA gives a full and detailed representation of the system response and can establish a connection between model parameters and the experimentally observed phenomena. In this article, different theoretical NFRA approaches and the most recent application examples are discussed. A simple electrochemical example is used to showcase the benefits and disadvantages of analyzing the system response by using different approaches. In addition, it was shown how to extract experimental harmonic values and analyze them.     

Semilinear wave models with friction and viscoelastic damping

In this paper, we study the global (in time) existence of small data solutions to the Cauchy problem for the semilinear wave equation with friction, viscoelastic damping, and a power nonlinearity. We are interested in the connection between regularity assumptions for the data and the admissible range of exponents p in the power nonlinearity.