Accurate fourteenth-order methods for solving nonlinear equations

We establish new iterative methods of local order fourteen to approximate the simple roots of nonlinear equations. The considered three-step eighth-order construction can be viewed as a variant of Newton’s method in which the concept of Hermite interpolation is used at the third step to reduce the number of evaluations. This scheme includes three evaluations of the function and one evaluation of the first derivative per iteration, hence its efficiency index is 1.6817. Next, the obtained approximation for the derivative of the Newton’s iteration quotient is again taken into consideration to furnish novel fourteenth-order techniques consuming four function and one first derivative evaluations per iteration. In providing such new fourteenth-order methods, we also take a special heed to the computational burden. The contributed four-step methods have 1.6952 as their efficiency index. Finally, various numerical examples are given to illustrate the accuracy of the developed techniques.     

An efficient glucose-based ligand for Heck and Suzuki coupling reactions in aqueous media

The glucose-based ligand, N-salicylidene-d-glucosamine (Sal-d-glsmN), was readily obtained by reaction of salicylaldehyde (Hsal) with the d-glucosamine hydrochloride. Ligand Sal-d-glsmN was found to be an efficient ligand in the palladium-catalyzed Suzuki and Heck C–C coupling reactions in aqueous medium under aerobic condition. It was found that the use of Sal-d-glsmN/Pd(OAc)₂ system as a catalyst, aryl halides undergo Suzuki and Heck cross-couplings, respectively, with arylboronic acids and olefins to give the desired products in moderate to excellent yields.     

Antioxidant capacity and phenolic composition of leaves from 10 Bene (Pistacia atlantica subsp. kurdica) genotypes

Leaves of 10 Bene genotypes were collected from six provinces (West Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Kermanshah, Ilam, Hamedan and Lorestan) in Iran. This study was carried out to better characterise the total phenolic and flavonoid contents, antioxidant capacity and phenolic composition, as well as to evaluate the correlation between content of phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity in 10 genotypes of Bene. The antioxidant activity of leaf extracts was measured using different assays: ferric reducing antioxidant power, nitric oxide radical scavenging and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl. The results indicated that the antioxidant capacity can be related to total phenolic and flavonoid content, so that among all the genotypes studied here, the highest and the lowest phenolic content and antioxidant activity were observed in B2 and B10 genotypes, respectively. Analysing the phenolic composition using high performance liquid chromatography, caffeic acid, vanillic acid, ferulic acid and sinapic acid were found in all investigated genotypes.     

Molecularly imprinted polymer based potentiometric sensor for the determination of hydroxyzine in tablets and biological fluids

Molecular imprinting is a useful technique for the preparation of functional materials with molecular recognition properties. In this work, a biomimetic potentiometric sensor, based on a non-covalent imprinted polymer, was fabricated for the recognition and determination of hydroxyzine in tablets and biological fluids. The molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) was synthesized by precipitation polymerization, using hydroxyzine dihydrochloride as a template molecule, methacrylic acid (MAA) as a functional monomer and ethylene glycol dimethacrylat (EGDMA) as a cross-linking agent. The sensor showed a high selectivity and a sensitive response to the template in aqueous system. The MIP-modified electrode exhibited a Nernstian response (29.4 ± 1.0 mV decade⁻¹) in a wide concentration range of 1.0 × 10⁻⁶ to 1.0 × 10⁻¹ M with a lower detection limit of 7.0 × 10⁻⁷ M. The electrode demonstrated a response time of ∼15 s, a high performance and a satisfactory long-term stability (more than 5 months). The method has the requisite accuracy, sensitivity and precision to assay hydroxyzine in tablets and biological fluids.     

Dissociative recombination of water cluster ions with free electrons: cross sections and branching ratios

Dissociative recombination (DR) of water cluster ions H(+)(H(2)O)(n) (n=4-6) with free electrons has been studied at the heavy-ion storage ring CRYRING (Manne Siegbahn Laboratory, Stockholm University). For the first time, branching ratios have been determined for the dominating product channels and absolute DR cross sections have been measured in the energy range from 0.001 to 0.7 eV. Dissociative recombination is concluded to result in extensive fragmentation for all three cluster ions, and a maximum number of heavy oxygen-containing fragments is produced with a probability close to unity. The branching ratio results agree with earlier DR studies of smaller water cluster ions where the channel nH(2)O+H has been observed to dominate and where energy transfer to internal degrees of freedom has been concluded to be highly efficient. The absolute DR cross sections for H(+)(H(2)O)(n) (n=4-6) decrease monotonically with increasing energy with an energy dependence close to E(-1) in the lower part of the energy range and a faster falloff at higher energies, in agreement with the behavior of other studied heavy ions. The cross section data have been used to calculate DR rate coefficients in the temperature range of 10-2000 K. The results from storage ring experiments with water cluster ions are concluded to partly confirm the earlier results from afterglow experiments. The DR rate coefficients for H(+)(H(2)O)(n) (n=1-6) are in general somewhat lower than reported from afterglow experiments. The rate coefficient tends to increase with increasing cluster size, but not in the monotonic way that has been reported from afterglow experiments. The needs for further experimental studies and for theoretical models that can be used to predict the DR rate of polyatomic ions are discussed.     

Biomimetic electrochemical sensor based on molecularly imprinted polymer for dicloran pesticide determination in biological and environmental samples

Dicloran pesticide is used to inhibit the fungal spore germination for different crops. Because of the increasing application of pesticides, reliable and accurate analytical methods are necessary. The aim of this work is designing the highly selective sensor to determine the dicloran in biological and environmental samples. Multi-walls carbon nanotubes and a molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) were used as modifiers in the sensor composition. A dicloran MIP and a nonimprinted polymer (NIP) were synthesized and applied in the carbon paste electrode. After the optimization of electrode composition, it was used to determine the concentration of analyte. Parameters affecting the sensor response were optimized, such as sample pH, electrolyte concentration and its pH, and the instrumental parameters of square wave voltammetry. The MIP-CP electrode showed very high recognition ability in comparison with NIP-CP. The obtained linear range was 1 × 10^?6 to 1 × 10^?9 mol L^?1. The detection limit was 4.8 × 10^?10 mol L^?1. This sensor was used to determine the dicloran in real samples (human urine, tap and river water samples) without special sample preparation before analysis. All important parameters were optimized, improving the sensor response considerably.