Determination of Formation Regions of Titanium Phosphates; Determination of the Crystal Structure ofβ-Titanium Phosphate, Ti(PO4)(H2PO4), from Neutron Powder Data

The formation region of the various types of layered titanium hydrogen phosphate hydrates was investigated. The materials were prepared by hydrothermal methods, treating amorphous titanium phosphate with phosphoric acid (8 to 16M) in the temperature range 175 to 250°C. The materials obtained were:α-Ti(HPO₄)₂·H₂O,γ-Ti(PO₄)(H₂PO₄)·2H₂O, and its anhydrous formβ-Ti(PO₄)(H₂PO₄). The structure ofβ-Ti(PO₄)(H₂PO₄) has been determined by Rietveld powder refinement of high resolution neutron diffraction data. The structure is refined in the monoclinic space groupP2₁/n(No. 14). The unit cell parameters are:a=18.9503(4) Å,b=6.3127(1) Å,c=5.1391(1) Å,β=105.366(2)°;Z=4. The final agreement factors were:R_p=2.9% andR_wp=3.8%. The structure ofβ-Ti(PO₄)(H₂PO₄) is built from TiO₆octahedra linked together by tertiary phosphate (PO₄) and dihydrogen phosphate ((OH)₂PO₂) tetrahedra. The layers are held together by hydrogen bonds.     

The relative influences of acidity and polarity on responsiveness of small organic molecules to analysis with negative ion electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS)

The purpose of the work presented here was to evaluate the influence of solution composition and analyte characteristics on responsiveness to analysis with negative ion electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. The responses of a series of structurally diverse acidic molecules were compared in various solvents. Response was generally observed to be higher in methanol than acetonitrile and response for all analytes was poorer when water was mixed with the organic solvent. A positive correlation between negative ion ESI-MS response and log P was observed when either acetonitrile or methanol was used as the electrospray solvent. This result was expected because analytes with significant nonpolar character should be particularly responsive to ESI-MS analysis due to their higher affinity for electrospray droplet surfaces. It was also predicted that highly acidic analytes would be most responsive to analysis with negative ion ESI-MS due to their tendency to form negative ions. However, for the analytes studied here, acidity was found not to have a consistent influence on ESI-MS response. Many of the highly acidic molecules were quite polar and, consequently, were poorly responsive. Furthermore, the deprotonated molecular ion was detected for a number of molecules with very high pKa values, which would not be expected to form negative ions in the bulk solution. Ultimately, these results indicate that acidity is not a conclusive parameter for prediction of the relative magnitudes of negative ion ESI-MS response among a diverse series of analytes. Analyte polarity does; however, appear to be useful for this purpose.     

Muffin-tin orbital Wannier-like functions for insulators and metals.

Herein, we outline a method that is able to generate truly minimal basis sets that accurately describe either a group of bands, a band, or even just the occupied part of a band. These basis sets are the so-called NMTOs, muffin-tin orbitals of order N. For an isolated set of bands, symmetrical orthonormalization of the NMTOs yields a set of Wannier functions that are atom-centered and localized by construction. They are not necessarily maximally localized, but may be transformed into those Wannier functions. For bands that overlap others, Wannier-like functions can be generated. It is shown that NMTOs give a chemical understanding of an extended system. In particular, orbitals for the pi and sigma bands in an insulator, boron nitride, and a semimetal, graphite, will be considered. In addition, we illustrate that it is possible to obtain Wannier-like functions for only the occupied states in a metallic system by generating NMTOs for cesium. Finally, we visualize the pressure-induced s-->d transition.     

Pseudochelin A,a siderophore of Pseudoalteromonas piscicida S2040

A new siderophore containing a 4,5-dihydroimidazole moiety was isolated from Pseudoalteromonas piscicida S2040 together with myxochelins A and B, alteramide A and its cycloaddition product, and bromo- and dibromoalterochromides. The structure of pseudochelin A was established by spectroscopic techniques including 2D NMR and MS/MS fragmentation data. In bioassays selected fractions of the crude extract of S2040 inhibited the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Pseudochelin A displayed siderophore activity in the chrome azurol S assay at concentrations higher than 50 μM, and showed weak activity against the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus, but did not display antibacterial, anti-inflammatory or anticonvulsant activity.     

Optimal estimation of the diffusion coefficient from non-averaged and averaged noisy magnitude data

The magnitude operation changes the signal distribution in MRI images from Gaussian to Rician. This introduces a bias that must be taken into account when estimating the apparent diffusion coefficient. Several estimators are known in the literature. In the present paper, two novel schemes are proposed. Both are based on simple least squares fitting of the measured signal, either to the median (MD) or to the maximum probability (MP) value of the Probability Density Function (PDF). Fitting to the mean (MN) or a high signal-to-noise ratio approximation to the mean (HS) is also possible. Special attention is paid to the case of averaged magnitude images. The PDF, which cannot be expressed in closed form, is analyzed numerically. A scheme for performing maximum likelihood (ML) estimation from averaged magnitude images is proposed. The performance of several estimators is evaluated by Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. We focus on typical clinical situations, where the number of acquisitions is limited. For non-averaged data the optimal choice is found to be MP or HS, whereas uncorrected schemes and the power image (PI) method should be avoided. For averaged data MD and ML perform equally well, whereas uncorrected schemes and HS are inadequate. MD provides easier implementation and higher computational efficiency than ML. Unbiased estimation of the diffusion coefficient allows high resolution diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and may therefore help solving the problem of crossing fibers encountered in white matter tractography.     

On-line dialysis and weak cation-exchange enrichment of dialysate. Automated high-performance liquid chromatography of pholcodine in human plasma and whole blood.

An automated method for the determination of pholcodine in plasma and whole blood is described. The technique combines dialysis and trace enrichment prior to high-performance liquid chromatography. Dialysis, trace enrichment on a weak cation-exchange column, separation on a cyano column and fluorescence detection was shown to be an extremely selective and sensitive method. The method has been used successfully in the analysis of real samples after administration of pholcodine. The automated method can be used, after minor modification, to determine other basic drugs in whole blood and plasma.