Crystallization,non-isothermal kinetics and structural analysis of nanocrystalline multiferroic bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3) synthesized by combustion method

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of curing and microwave power levels on energy analysis, drying characteristics, modeling and quality...     

Entropy Optimization,Maxwell–Boltzmann,and Rayleigh Distributions

In physics, communication theory, engineering, statistics, and other areas, one of the methods of deriving distributions is the optimization of an appropriate measure of entropy under relevant constraints. In this paper, it is shown that by optimizing a measure of entropy introduced by the second author, one can derive densities of univariate, multivariate, and matrix-variate distributions in the real, as well as complex, domain. Several such scalar, multivariate, and matrix-variate distributions are derived. These include multivariate and matrix-variate Maxwell–Boltzmann and Rayleigh densities in the real and complex domains, multivariate Student-t, Cauchy, matrix-variate type-1 beta, type-2 beta, and gamma densities and their generalizations.     

An alternate approach for modelling of transient vaporous cavitation

Simulation of cavitating flow has been a thrust area of research for long period due to its practical and economic importance. The major hurdle in developing a numerical model for such flows is the difficulty in representing the quick phase changes, in general, and the alternate change of flow from single phase to two phase and back, in particular. In this case, instability due to sharp variation of flow characteristics also restricts the development of numerical models. The present study demonstrates the use of a relatively simple formulation for the analysis of flow characteristics in a quasi‐rigid pipeline under abrupt phase changes due to cavitation. A popular scheme—MacCormack scheme—was used for developing a numerical solution for this problem. It uses the conservative form of the governing equations, viz. conservation of mass and momentum, the transport equation and the constitutive relationship. The model can handle variable properties of the water–vapour mixture, which is highly compressible. A newly introduced pressure under‐relaxation method overcomes the numerical instability due to sharp variation of flow characteristics during phase change. The model could predict the instant of occurrence of vapour pressure, duration of persistence of vapour pressure and the rise of pressure due to vapour collapse to satisfactory levels with published data and experimental results. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Green tea polyphenols in combination with copper(II) induce apoptosis in HeLa cells

In the present investigation we report that the natural antioxidant green tea polyphenols (GTPs) could induce apoptosis in HeLa cells in the presence of copper cation. After treatment with low concentrations of GTP (5-15 M) plus 2 M Cu²⁺, HeLa cells died gradually as measured by the MTT assay. Agarose gel electrophoresis analysis of DNA extracted from HeLa cells exposed to GTP/Cu²⁺ showed typical internucleosomal DNA fragmentation (DNA ladder), which was also confirmed by DNA content analysis by flow cytometry. Morphological observation of HeLa cells treated with GTP/Cu2+ by transmission electronic microscopy also showed typical apoptotic features including cell shrinkage, chromatin condensation, and the formation of apoptotic bodies. Laser confocal microscopy determination of intracellular calcium level revealed that exposure to GTP/Cu²⁺ triggered increase of cytosolic calcium ion, which may be involved in the process of apoptosis. This evidence suggested that GTPs might be used as potential therapeutic agent for the treatment of cancer.     

Memory of chirality trapping of low inversion barrier 1,4-benzodiazepin-2-one enolates

We have previously demonstrated that chiral, enantiopure 3-substituted 1,4-benzodiazepin-2-ones undergo retentive deprotonation/trapping at −78 °C, if the N1-substituent is sufficiently large (e.g., i-Pr). Stereocontrol in this reaction is attributed to the formation of an enantiopure, conformationally chiral enolate; at −78 °C a large N1 substituent (e.g., i-Pr) is needed to impart a sufficient barrier to enolate racemization. Herein, we report strategies to achieve high enantiomeric excess in deprotonation/alkylation of low inversion barrier 1,4-benzodiazepin-2-ones featuring small N1 substituents.     

Bipartite molecular approach for species delimitation and resolving cryptic speciation of Exobasidium vexans within the Exobasidium genus

Exobasidium vexans, a basidiomycete pathogen, is the causal organism of blister blight disease in tea. The molecular identification of the pathogen remains a challenge due to the limited availability of genomic data in sequence repositories and cryptic speciation within its genus Exobasidium. In this study, the nuclear internal transcribed spacer rDNA region (ITS) based DNA barcode was developed for E. vexans, to address the problem of molecular identification within the background of cryptic speciation. The isolation of E. vexans strain was confirmed through morphological studies followed by molecular identification utilizing the developed ITS barcode. Phylogenetic analysis based on Maximum Parsimony (MP), Maximum Likelihood (ML) and Bayesian Inference (BI) confirmed the molecular identification of the pathogen as E. vexans strain. Further, BI analysis using BEAST mediated the estimation of the divergence time and evolutionary relationship of E. vexans within genus Exobasidium. The speciation process followed the Yule diversification model wherein the genus Exobasidium is approximated to have diverged in the Paleozoic era. The study thus sheds light on the molecular barcode-based species delimitation and evolutionary relationship of E. vexans within its genus Exobasidium.     

Flexibility of enzymatic transitions as a hallmark of optimized enzyme steady-state kinetics and thermodynamics

We investigate the relations between the enzyme kinetic flexibility, the rate of entropy production, and the Shannon information entropy in a steady-state enzyme reaction. All these quantities are maximized with respect to enzyme rate constants. We show that the steady-state, which is characterized by the most flexible enzymatic transitions between the enzyme conformational states, coincides with the global maxima of the Shannon information entropy and the rate of entropy production. This steady-state of an enzyme is referred to as globally optimal. This theoretical approach is then used for the analysis of the kinetic and the thermodynamic performance of the enzyme triose-phosphate isomerase. The analysis reveals that there exist well-defined maxima of the kinetic flexibility, the rate of entropy production, and the Shannon information entropy with respect to any arbitrarily chosen rate constant of the enzyme and that these maxima, calculated from the measured kinetic rate constants for the triose-phosphate isomerase are lower, however of the same order of magnitude, as the maxima of the globally optimal state of the enzyme. This suggests that the triose-phosphate isomerase could be a well, but not fully evolved enzyme, as it was previously claimed. Herein presented theoretical investigations also provide clear evidence that the flexibility of enzymatic transitions between the enzyme conformational states is a requirement for the maximal Shannon information entropy and the maximal rate of entropy production.     

Silencing lung cancer genes using miRNAs identified by 7mer-seed matching

Lung cancer (LC) is the main cause of cancer-associated deaths in both men and women globally with a very high mortality rate. The microRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of noncoding RNAs consisting of 18–25 nucleotides. They inhibit translation of protein through binding to complementary target mRNAs. The non-coding miRNAs are recognized as potent biomarkers for detection, development and treatment of malignancy. In this study, we screened a set of 12 genes over expressed in small cell lung cancer, non small cell lung cancer and the genes involved in both categories and their binding sites for human miRNAs as no work was reported yet. Screening of human miRNAs revealed that a few genes showed numerous miRNA binding sites. Free energy values of mRNA sequences revealed that they might acquire compact folded structure causing complexity for miRNAs to interact. GC content in the target site was relatively higher than that of their flanks. It was observed through analysis of cosine similarity metric and compAI parameters that the genes related to lung cancer were encoded with non optimal codons and thus might be translationally less efficient for producing polypeptides. Gene ontology analysis was carried out to understand the diverse functions of these 12 genes.