A highly selective and sensitive thorium(IV) PVC membrane electrode based on a dithio-tetraaza macrocyclic compound.

A poly(vinyl chloride)-based membrane composed of dithio-tetraaza macrocyclic compound as a neutral carrier with sodium tetraphenylborate (NaTPB) as an anion excluder and nitrobenzene (NB) as plasticizer was prepared and investigated as a Th(IV)-selective electrode. The electrode exhibits a Nernstian slope of 14.2 +/- 0.3 mV per decade over a wide concentration range (1.0 x 10(-6) to 1.0 x 10(-1) M) with a detection limit of 8.0 x 10(-7) M between pH 3.5 and 9.5. The response time of the sensor is about 10 s and it can be used over a period of 5 months without any divergence in potential. The proposed membrane sensor revealed a good selectivity for Th(IV) over a wide variety of other metal ions and proved to be a better electrode in many respects than those reported in the literature. It was successfully applied as an electrode indicator as well as in the direct determination of thorium ions in standard and real samples.     

Use of HPTLC,HPLC, and Densitometry for Qualitative Separation of Indole Alkaloids from Rauvolfia serpentina Roots

JPC – Journal of Planar Chromatography – Modern TLC - High-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) has been used for normal-phase separation of the components of hexane,...     

Asymmetric oxidation of sulfides catalyzed by (R)-6,6'-dibromo-BINOL derived titanium complex

Abstract

An efficient asymmetric oxidation of sulfides was achieved using (R)-6,6'-dibromo-BINOL as chiral ligand in combination with Ti(OⁱPr)₄ using 70% aqueous tertiary butyl hydroperoxide as oxidant. The resulting sulfoxides had high enantiopurities and good yields. A range of aryl alkyl and aryl benzyl sulfides were oxidized to the corresponding sulfoxides with 78–95% ee in 72–80% yields.     

Distribution of trace elements in flowing surface waters: Effect of seasons and anthropogenic practices in India

This study reports the distribution of Cr, Ni, Cu and Pb in waters, sediments, macrophytes and fish of the Yamuna River’s patch in Delhi (India). This is one of the most polluted stretches of rivers in the world. Water from this river is used fosr irrigation, industrial and domestic purposes, including drinking water. The effects of season and anthropogenic practices were identified. Almost zero dissolved oxygen and high levels of lead and phosphate indicate the polluted state of the aquatic system. The enrichment factors in sediments (with respect to reference site) vary in the range of 0.60–82.9% (Cr), 1.40–90.5% (Ni), 1.00–85.3% (Cu) and 3.80–86.6% (Pb). The toxic effects due to Ni and Pb could frequently be visible in aquatic life as their values fall above the probable effect level (36 mg Kg^?1 for Ni and 91.3 mg Kg^?1 for Pb). The metal contents in the macrophyte (Eichhornia crassipes) and the fish (Oreochromis niloticus) generally increase in the summer season. Cu and Pb accumulate preferentially in E. crassipes. The fish from these waters is unsuitable for human consumption as the levels of Cr, Cu and Pb are above the recommended limits. Significant spatial variations in parameters of water and sediments were confirmed via one-way analysis of variance. The Pearson’s correlation analysis suggests a common source of some of the metals. Principal component analysis highlighted domestic, and industrial waste and coal-fired thermal power plants as the metal sources. This study might act as a benchmark for other investigations focused on similarly affected surface aquatic systems due to agricultural and industrial activities.     

One-Pot Sequential Approach for the Construction of Highly Functionalized Triazolo[4,3-c]pyrimidine Library

Novel [1,2,4]triazolo[4,3-c]pyrimidine-8-carboxamides were synthesized via oxidative cyclization of hydrazono-1,6-dihydropyrimidine-5-carboxamide intermediates by the application of iodobenzenediacetate as a sole cyclizing agent. Here, we report a one-pot sequential strategy to generate the corresponding triazolopyrimidines by condensation of preprepared α-acylketene dithioacetals and arylamidines. Moreover, this process describes the application of presynthesized arylamidines, which omits the Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling reaction and hence provides metal-free organic synthesis in an atom- and step-economical fashion.     

Reinforcing the membrane-mediated mechanism of action of the anti-tuberculosis candidate drug thioridazine with molecular simulations

Thioridazine is a well-known dopamine-antagonist drug with a wide range of pharmacological properties ranging from neuroleptic to antimicrobial and even anticancer activity. Thioridazine is a critical component of a promising multi-drug therapy against M. tuberculosis. Amongst the various proposed mechanisms of action, the cell membrane-mediated one is peculiarly tempting due to the distinctive feature of phenothiazine drug family to accumulate in selected body tissues. In this study, we employ long-scale molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the interactions of three different concentrations of thioridazine with zwitterionic and negatively charged model lipid membranes. Thioridazine partitions into the interfacial region of membranes and modifies their structural and dynamic properties, however dissimilarly so at the highest membrane-occurring concentration, that appears to be obtainable only for the negatively charged bilayer. We show that the origin of such changes is the drug induced decrease of the interfacial tension, which ultimately leads to the significant membrane expansion. Our findings support the hypothesis that the phenothiazines therapeutic activity may arise from the drug–membrane interactions, and reinforce the wider, emerging view of action of many small, bioactive compounds.     

A lower bound on the error in dimensionality reduction resulting from projection onto a restricted subspace

We obtain the lower bound on a variant of the common problem of dimensionality reduction. In this version, the dataset is projected on to a k dimensional subspace with the property that the first k-1 basis vectors are fixed, leaving a single degree of freedom in terms of basis vectors.