Electrochemical response of ascorbic acid at conducting and electrogenerated polymer modified electrodes for electroanalytical applications: a review

The present short review deals with electroanalytical aspects of electrochemical response of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) at conducting and electrogenerated polymer modified electrodes. Two main topics are considered: (i) electrocatalytic oxidation of ascorbate at conducting polymer modified electrodes, leading to electroanalytical techniques for ascorbate assay, and (ii) retardation of ascorbate penetration through a layer of electrogenerated polymers, leading to permselective coatings and their diverse uses, especially for biosensing devices.     

Fermentation characteristics and the dynamic trend of chemical components during fermentation of Massa Medicata Fermentata

As a representative of traditionally fermented Chinese medicine, Massa Medicata Fermentata (MMF) shows the functions of invigorating the spleen and stomach and promoting digestion, which plays an important role in the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases. The fermentation mechanism and the key factors that affect the quality of MMF have not been revealed yet, which has become an urgent issue that limits its clinical application. This article aims to systematically and comprehensively reveal the transformation of physical properties and the dynamic trend of chemical components including substrate components, volatile components, and lactic acid as anaerobic fermentation product during MMF fermentation. Along with obvious hyphae growth observed for MMF, the weight of MMF decreased, and the moisture and temperature increased. Through the quantified 14 components from substrate, ferulic acid increased from 45.53 ± 6.94 to 141.89 ± 78.40 μg/g, while glycosides and phenolic acids declined except caffeic acid. Also, within the 66 volatile components analyzed, alcohols and acids increased, while aldehydes and ketones decreased. Lactic acid was not detected in the fermentation substrate, but an apparent increase in lactic acid content was observed along with the increased fermentation days, resulting in 2.54 ± 0.15 mg/g on day 8. Based on the tested components, the fermentation process of MMF was discriminated into three distinct stages by principal component analysis, and an optimal fermentation time of four days was proposed. The results of this study will be of great significance to clarify the characteristics of fermentation and conduce to improving quality standards of MMF.     

Fast simultaneous determination of 23 veterinary drug residues in fish,poultry, and red meat by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry

The misuses of veterinary drugs can result in the accumulation of residues in food of animal origin that can make its way to the final consumer. Herein we describe a simple method for the accurate determination of beta-lactams, quinolones, sulphonamides, and tetracyclines in fish, poultry, and red meat. No extraction cartridges were used; instead, the extraction process consisted of the addition of an organic solvents, shaking, centrifugation, and dilution. An extensive validation process demonstrated an excellent linearity (R² ≥ 0.99) for 23-drug residues. The recovery of drugs in different matrices at two concentration levels (n = 6) was in the range of 82–119%. The method was proved to be repeatable and reproducible with intra/inter-day measurements (RSDs lower than 20%). The quantification limits of drug residues were in the range of 0.8 to 45.3 ug/kg, which is well below the maximum residue limits set by most regulatory authorities. This method was successfully applied to the routine analysis of 20 fish, poultry, and red meat samples (n = 60).     

Simultaneous determination of traces of heavy metals by solid-phase spectrophotometry

A coupling sensitive solid phase spectrophotometric (SPS) procedure for determination of traces of heavy metals (Me-SPS) and multicomponent analysis by multiple linear regressions (MA), a simple methodology for simultaneous determination of metals in mixtures was inaugurated. The Me-SPS procedure is based on sorption of heavy metals on PAN-resin and direct absorbance measurements of colour product Me-PAN sorbed on a solid carrier in a 1-mm cell. This methodology (Me-SPS-MA) was checked by simultaneous determination of metals in synthetic mixtures with different compositions and contents of metals important in pharmaceutical practice: Zn, Pb, Cd, Cu, Co, and Ni. Good agreement between experimental and theoretical amounts of heavy metals is obtained from the recovery test (78.3–110.0%). The proposed method enables determination of particular metal ion at the ng mL⁻¹ level and it was successfully applied to the determination impurities from heavy metal traces in pharmaceutical substances (Cu in ascorbic acid, Pb in glucose, and Zn in insulin). The proposed procedure could be possible contribution to the development of pharmacopoeial methodology for a heavy metals test.     

Low Mach number limit of inviscid Hookean elastodynamics

The low Mach number limit of inviscid Hookean elastodynamic equations is rigorously proved in bounded domain, whole space and periodic domain, respectively. The uniform existence of smooth solutions and convergence results as the Mach number tends to zero are obtained in three different domains.     

Hopf bifurcation of a tumor immune model with time delay

In this paper, a tumor immune model with time delay is studied. First, the stability of nonnegative equilibria is analyzed. Then the time delay τ is selected as a bifurcation parameter and the existence of Hopf bifurcation is proved. Finally, by using the canonical method and the central manifold theory, the criteria for judging the direction and stability of Hopf bifurcation are given.     

Estimation of a quantile in some nonstandard cases

A necessary condition for the asymptotic normality of the sample quantile estimator isf(Q(p))=F(Q(p))>0, whereQ(p) is thep-th quantile of the distribution functionF(x). In this paper, we estimate a quantile by a kernel quantile estimator when this condition is violated. We have shown that the kernel quantile estimator is asymptotically normal in some nonstandard cases. The optimal convergence rate of the mean squared error for the kernel estimator is obtained with respect to the asymptotically optimal bandwidth. A law of the iterated logarithm is also established.This research was partially supported by the new faculty award from the University of Oregon.     

Large deviations for martingales with some applications

Let(X _i ) be a martingale difference sequence. LetY be a standard normal random variable. We investigate the rate of uniform convergence

Phase separation of symmetrical polymer mixtures in thin-film geometry

Monte Carlo simulations of the bond fluctuation model of symmetrical polymer blends confined between two neutral repulsive walls are presented for chain lengthN _A=N _B=32 and a wide range of film thicknessD (fromD=8 toD=48 in units of the lattice spacing). The critical temperaturesT _c (D) of unmixing are located by finite-size scaling methods, and it is shown that , wherev ₃0.63 is the correlation length exponent of the three-dimensional Ising model universality class. Contrary to this result, it is argued that the critical behavior of the films is ruled by two-dimensional exponents, e.g., the coexistence curve (difference in volume fraction of A-rich and A-poor phases) scales as , where ₂ is the critical exponent of the two-dimensional Ising universality class ( ₂=1/8). Since for largeD this asymptotic critical behavior is confined to an extremely narrow vicinity ofT _c (D), one observes in practice effective exponents which gradually cross over from ₂ to ₃ with increasing film thickness. This anomalous flattening of the coexistence curve should be observable experimentally.     

Convolution semigroups and central limit theorem associated with a dual convolution structure

We consider hypergroups associated with Jacobi functions ⁽⁾ (x), (–1/2). We prove the existence of a dual convolution structure on [0,+[i(]0,s ₀]{{) =++1,s ₀=min(,–+1). Next we establish a Lévy-Khintchine type formula which permits to characterize the semigroup and the infinitely divisible probabilities associated with this dual convolution, finally we prove a central limit theorem.