Identification of active compounds from medicinal plant extracts using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and multivariate data analysis

Conventional methods of drug discovery from natural products include bioassay-guided fractionation, which is tedious and has low efficiency. The aim of this work is to develop a platform method to rapidly identify bioactive compounds from crude plant extracts and their partially purified fractions using multivariate data analysis (MVDA). Soxhlet extraction and liquid-liquid fractionation were used to prepare different extracts and fractions from the leaves of a medicinal plant, Ardisia elliptica. The extracts and fractions were analysed chemically using GC-MS, and their ability to inhibit platelet aggregation was investigated. Two MVDA methods were developed and optimised to analyse the results. In the first method, compounds with the highest contribution scores for biological activity calculated by different models were listed as potential antiplatelet compounds. For the second MVDA method, a correlation of the concentrations of constituents and biological activities in the various extracts and fractions for each compound was done. Compounds with the highest correlation coefficients were identified as potential antiplatelet compounds. One of the predicted components was isolated, purified and confirmed to possess antiplatelet effects. This platform method can be developed and optimised for other plant extracts and biological activities, thus reducing time and cost of drug discovery while improving efficiency.     

柱前荧光衍生-高效液相色谱法测定尿和血清中的环境雌激素

建立了同时测定人尿和血清中环境雌激素双酚A、4-壬基酚、17α-乙炔基雌二醇及内源性雌激素雌三醇、17α-雌二醇和17β-雌二醇的对硝基苯甲酰氯柱前荧光衍生-高效液相色谱测定方法。尿样经酸水解、固相萃取柱浓缩、净化分离;血清样品经乙腈沉淀蛋白后,用乙醚萃取游离态雌激素,N2气流挥干、在无水条件下,雌激素与对硝基苯甲酰氯反应生成荧光产物,用高效液相色谱法定量。检出限为2．7—8．3μg／L;加标回收率尿样为78．0％-102．5％,血清样为72．6％-98．6％;方法精密度为1．29％-4．52％。应用本法对20份尿样和10份血清样进行了测定,结果满意。     

A delay-dependent model with HIV drug resistance during therapy

The use of combination antiretroviral therapy has proven remarkably effective in controlling HIV disease progression and prolonging survival. However, the emergence of drug resistance can occur. It is necessary that we gain a greater understanding of the evolution of drug resistance. Here, we consider an HIV viral dynamical model with general form of target cell density, drug resistance and intracellular delay incorporating antiretroviral therapy. The model includes two strains: wild-type and drug-resistant. The basic reproductive ratio for each strain is obtained for the existence of steady states. Qualitative analysis of the model such as the well-posedness of the solutions and the equilibrium stability is provided. Global asymptotic stability of the disease-free and drug-resistant steady states is shown by constructing Lyapunov functions. Furthermore, sufficient conditions related to the properties of the target cell density are obtained for the local asymptotic stability of the positive steady state. Numerical simulations are conducted to study the impact of target cell density and intracellular delay focusing on the stability of the positive steady state. The occurrence of Hopf bifurcation of periodic solutions is shown to depend on the target cell density.     

Phosphoric acid purification by suspension melt crystallization: Parametric study of the crystallization and sweating steps

In order to purify phosphoric acid, the suspension melt crystallization process was studied. The suspension crystallization experiments were carried out with 80, 84 and 88 wt% phosphoric acid melt at the cooling rates of 0.05, 0.1 and 0.2 K/min, respectively. Sweating experiments were executed for various crystals obtained in suspension crystallization step. The purification effects of the sweating parameters including sweating time, initial inclusion amount and initial impurity content were studied. The inclusion fraction increases with the increase in cooling rate. The inclusion fraction of the crystals which were formed with feed concentration of 84 wt% phosphoric acid melt is lowest among the three feed concentrations. Different impurities have different purification performances during sweating. High inclusion amount and low impurity concentration favor the purification of H₃PO₄·0.5H₂O crystals during sweating.     

Boundedness Is Redundant in a Theorem of Daubechies

We polish a theorem and its proof of Daubechies by removing the boundedness condition. The importance of the original theorem is that it links the vanishing of moments to the smoothness.     

Recent advances in intermixed phase of organic solar cells: Characterization,regulating strategies and device applications

Organic solar cells (OSCs) have unique advantages of low-cost solution processing, light weight, flexibility, and semitransparency, which is a promising photovoltaic technology. The intermixed phase plays a key role in determining the power conversion efficiencies (PCE) of OSCs. The intermixed phase is an amorphous region, where the donor and acceptor mix at the molecular level. Great efforts have been devoted to optimize the content and the composition of the intermixed phase. This perspective focuses on the functions of intermixed phase and elaborates the relationship between intermixed phase behavior and photophysical process, in particular, the exciton dissociation and charge transport. Then the characterization methods, including quantitative and qualitative characterizations, for the content and composition of intermixed phases are introduced. Meanwhile, this review also introduces the strategies to control the intermixed phase behavior, such as adjusting the miscibility between donor and acceptor, changing the ratio of donor to acceptor, regulating the crystallinity and so on. Moreover, representative examples are given and discussed to understand the key parameters on tuning the intermixed phase behavior. Finally, a future controlling and development of intermixed phase behavior is briefly outlooked, which may help to achieve high PCE of OSCs.     

The impact of diperfluorophenyl and thienyl substituents on the electronic structures and charge transport properties of the fused thiophene semiconductors

The charge transport properties of 3 fused thiophene semiconductors, end-capped with diperfluorophenylthien-2-yl (DFPT) groups (DFPT-thieno[2′, 3′:4, 5]thieno[3, 2-b]thieno[2, 3-d]thiophene (TTA), DFPT-dithieno[2, 3-b:3′, 2′-d]thiophenes (DTT), and DFPT-thieno[3, 2-b]thiophene (TT)), are explored via density functional theory (DFT). To gain a better understanding of the impact of diperfluorophenyl and thienyl substituents on the electronic structures and charge transport properties of these molecules, the geometric structures, reorganization energy, frontier molecular orbitals, molecular ionization potentials and electron affinities, absorption spectra of the corresponding molecules including diperfluorophenyl (DFP)-TTA, DFP-DTT, DFP-TT, dithienyl (DT)-TTA, DT-DTT, DT-TT as well as their parent molecules (TTA, DTT and TT) are investigated for comparison. The calculated results show that introducing perfluorophenyl groups to the fused thiophenes could be a good strategy to promote electron transport, while the insertion of additional thiophene rings to DFP-end-capped derivatives could further extend the π-conjugation and enhance the charge transport properties of DFPT-end-capped analogs.     

基于GPRS/SMS空气污染远程监控系统的设计与实现

为了实现空气质量指数的智能监测和管理,设计并实现了一种基于SnO2人工嗅觉探测的空气质量指数监测系统,系统通过空气质量指数现场网络监测节点采集、处理以及传递空气质量指数数据,采用ARM S3CA510B进行DTU数据传递,实现空气质量指数数据CO、SO2等的高效率、大批量的传递;使用汇聚节点模块通过GPRS网络将数据传递到监管终端,监管终端将管理命令通过GPRS网络反馈到汇聚监测节点,实现空气质量指数数据的远程监测;采用监测管理终端为管理人员提供不同的监测处理、控制处理以及空气质量指数监测相关数据检索和汇总分析等人机界面。对系统空气质量指数信息流的传递流程图进行了设计,给出了系统数据通过串口进行通信的代码以及系统监管终端使用套接字实现网络通信的核心源码。实验结果说明,与传统系统相比,所提系统可实时监测出空气中CO、SO2等污染气体的浓度,具有很高的实用性及有效性。     

概率地震危险性评价系统开发

工程建设时必须对工程场地的地震危险性进行评价,并且对工程结构物要采取抗震设计。由于相关部门往往针对某一地区只提供一个地震设防加速度范围值或地震设防烈度值,而且某一地震烈度值所对应的加速度值的范围也很大,使得在实际应用中给具体工程安全、经济地选用合适的抗震设防加速度带来一定困难;为解决这个问题,本文以概率地震危险性评价理论为基础,开发了一套地震危险性评价系统。利用该评价系统根据相关地震活动性参数,可以方便、快速地计算出具体工程应该采用的抗震设防加速度值,从而解决了工程活动中安全、经济地选用抗震设防加速度值的问题。文中还针对潜在线源和潜在面源的处理难以在程序上实现这一难题,分别提出了一种精确求解和近似求解的算法。本文并以实例进行了评价计算,计算结果与中国地震局公布的数据符合较好,从而验证了开发的评价系统具有较好的可信度。     

香豆素-亚胺型Cu~(2+)识别荧光探针的合成及性能

以2,4-二羟基水杨醛为原料经Knoevenagel缩合反应、脱乙酰化反应,再与4-二乙氨基水杨醛经缩合反应,进而通过甲基化合成了新型的香豆素荧光探针.利用核磁共振氢谱(1 H NMR)、碳谱(13 C NMR)和高分辩质谱对所合成的目标化合物进行了结构确认,并测定了其荧光光谱.结果表明,目标化合物对Cu2+有较好的选择性和灵敏度,且当Cu2+浓度在0.66~10μmol·L-1范围内时探针的荧光强度与其浓度有较好的线性关系.Job分析法表明探针与金属离子作用形成1∶1结合的络合物.