Design and development of a two‐dimensional system based on hydrophilic and reversed‐phase liquid chromatography with on‐line sample treatment for the simultaneous separation of excreted xenobiotics and endogenous metabolites in urine

In the present work we describe a two‐dimensional liquid chromatographic system (2D‐LC) with detection by mass spectrometry (MS) for the simultaneous separation of endogenous metabolites of clinical interest and excreted xenobiotics deriving from exposure to toxic compounds. The 2D‐LC system involves two orthogonal chromatographic modes, hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) to separate polar endogenous metabolites and reversed‐phase (RP) chromatography to separate excreted xenobiotics of low and intermediate polarity. Additionally, the present proposal has the novelty of incorporating an on‐line sample treatment based on the use of restricted access materials (RAMs), which permits the direct injection of urine samples into the system. The work is focused on the instrumental coupling, studying all possible options and attempting to circumvent the problems of solvent incompatibility between the RAM device and the two chromatographic columns, HILIC and RP. The instrumental configuration developed, RAM‐HILIC‐RPLC‐MS/MS, allows the simultaneous assessment of urinary metabolites of clinical interest and excreted compounds derived from exposure to toxic agents with minimal sample manipulation. Thus, it may be of interest in areas such as occupational and environmental toxicology in order to explore the possible relationship between the two types of compounds. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evidence of a Photo‐Radical Pathway Responsible of the Rearrangement of a Manganese(III)‐Schiff Base Complex in Solution

A new Mn^III‐Schiff base complex, [MnL(OH₂)](ClO₄) ( 1 ) (H₂L = N, N′‐bis‐(3‐Br‐5‐Cl‐salicylidene)‐1, 2‐diimino‐2‐methylethane), an inorganic model of the catalytic center (OEC, Oxygen Evolving Complex) in photosystem II (PSII), has been synthesized and characterized by elemental analysis, IR and EPR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, magnetic susceptibility measurement and the study of its redox properties by cyclic and normal pulse voltammetry. This complex mimics reactivity (showing a relevant photolytic activity), and also some structural characteristics (parallel‐mode Mn^III EPR signal from partially assembled OEC cluster) of the natural OEC. The complex 1 was found to rearrange in solution into a crystallographically solved square‐pyramidal complex, [MnLL′] ( 2 ) (HL′ = 6‐bromo‐4‐chloro‐2‐cyanophenol), through a process, which probably liberates radical species (detected by EPR), and provokes a C—N bond cleavage in the ligand. A photo‐radical mechanism is discussed to explain this rearrangement.     

Continuation of travelling‐wave solutions of the Navier–Stokes equations

An efficient way of obtaining travelling waves in a periodic fluid system is described and tested. We search for steady states in a reference frame travelling at the wave phase velocity using a first‐order pseudospectral semi‐implicit time scheme adapted to carry out the Newton's iterations. The method is compared to a standard Newton–Raphson solver and is shown to be highly efficient in performing this task, even when high‐resolution grids are used. This method is well suited to three‐dimensional calculations in cylindrical or spherical geometries. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Indexing text using the Ziv–Lempel trie

Let a text of u characters over an alphabet of size σ be compressible to n phrases by the LZ78 algorithm. We show how to build a data structure based on the Ziv–Lempel trie, called the LZ-index, that takes 4nlog₂n(1+o(1)) bits of space (that is, 4 times the entropy of the text for ergodic sources) and reports the R occurrences of a pattern of length m in worst case time O(m³logσ+(m+R)logn). We present a practical implementation of the LZ-index, which is faster than current alternatives when we take into consideration the time to report the positions or text contexts of the occurrences found.     

Practical algorithms for transposition-invariant string-matching

We consider the problems of (1) longest common subsequence (LCS) of two given strings in the case where the first may be shifted by some constant (that is, transposed) to match the second, and (2) transposition-invariant text searching using indel distance. These problems have applications in music comparison and retrieval. We introduce two novel techniques to solve these problems efficiently. The first is based on the branch and bound method, the second on bit-parallelism. Our branch and bound algorithm computes the longest common transposition-invariant subsequence (LCTS) in time O((m²+loglogσ)logσ) in the best case and O((m²+logσ)σ) in the worst case, where m and σ, respectively, are the length of the strings and the size of the alphabet. On the other hand, we show that the same problem can be solved by using bit-parallelism and thus obtain a speedup of O(w/logm) over the classical algorithms, where the computer word has w bits. The advantage of this latter algorithm over the present bit-parallel ones is that it allows the use of more complex distances, including general integer weights. Since our branch and bound method is very flexible, it can be further improved by combining it with other efficient algorithms such as our novel bit-parallel algorithm. We experiment on several combination possibilities and discuss which are the best settings for each of those combinations. Our algorithms are easily extended to other musically relevant cases, such as δ-matching and polyphony (where there are several parallel texts to be considered). We also show how our bit-parallel algorithm is adapted to text searching and illustrate its effectiveness in complex cases where the only known competing method is the use of brute force.     

The derivatives of equilibrium states

We find some estimates for the derivatives of equilibrium states of subshifts of finite type. We prove the differentiability (with respect to the potential) of integrals of certain discontinuous functions for the equilibrium state of a potential.research supported by CNPq, Brazil     

Practical aspects associated with location planning for maternal and perinatal assistance in Brazil

A study has been carried out aimed at reducing perinatal mortality in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro through a better distribution of health care facilities. The algorithmic aspects are detailed elsewhere and here the emphasis is on practical issues and difficulties encountered. A 3-level hierarchical model was developed. Both uncapacitated and capacitated versions are briefly described together with some results based on actual data. The project brought to light many contradictions between OR theory and practice in developing countries and, unfortunately, the models developed were not implemented by the municipality health authorities. Possible reasons for this outcome are analysed.     

Physical aging of a polyetherimide: Creep and DSC measurements

Creep and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements have been used to study the physical aging behavior of a polyetherimide. Isothermal aging temperatures ranged from 160°C to T_g with aging times ranging from 10 min to 8 days. The only measurable effect of physical aging on the short-time creep curves is a shift of the creep compliance to longer times. Andrade plots of the compliance versus the cube root of time are linear at short times with the slope β decreasing with increasing aging time to a constant value once equilibrium is reached. Log β³ is related directly to the degree to which the creep curves shift to longer times with physical aging, and is used in this work as a measure of physical aging. A reduced curve of log β³ versus log aging time is obtained for the aging temperatures investigated by appropriate vertical and horizontal shifts. The enthalpy change during aging increases linearly with the logarithm of the aging time, t_a, leveling off at equilibrium at values which increase with decreasing aging temperature. Hence, both nonequilibrium and equilibrium temperature shift factors can be calculated from the DSC data. Good agreement is observed between the equilibrium temperature shift factors obtained from the creep and DSC data. The temperature dependence of the nonequilibrium temperature shift factors is found to be an order of magnitude smaller than that of the equilibrium shift factors. The time scales to reach equilibrium for enthalpy and for mechanical measurements are found to be the same within experimental error. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Polarization transforming properties of Dove prisms

We analyze the polarization changes introduced by a rotated Dove prism on the linearly polarized light, using the Jones calculus and the exact ray trace analysis. The state of polarization changes from the linear to a mildly elliptical one when a plane wave front passes through a rotated Dove prism: its semi-major axis is nearly parallel to the input plane of polarization, for any angle of prism rotation. The interferogram contrast remains high for all shearing angles in spite of polarization changes when the Dove prism is incorporated into a rotational shearing interferometer. These results are confirmed experimentally.