Highly insulating alkane rings with destructive σ-interference

Science China Chemistry - Destructive quantum interference (DQI) provides a unique approach to controlling the leakage current in the OFF state of molecular devices. However, the DQI in...     

Role of Daucus carota in Enhancing Antiulcer Profile of Pantoprazole in Experimental Animals

The carrot plant (Daucus carota) and its components are traditionally reported for the management of gastric ulcers. This study was performed to evaluate the role of carrot when administered concurrently with a conventional antiulcer treatment, pantoprazole, in alleviating gastric and duodenal ulcers in female experimental animals. The study involved standard animal models to determine the ulcer preventive effect using pylorus ligation, ethanol, and stress induced acute gastric ulcer models and duodenal ulcer models involving cysteamine. Acetic acid-induced chronic gastric ulcer and indomethacin-induced gastric ulcer models were used to evaluate the ulcer healing effect. Carrot fruit (500 mg/kg) and its co-administration with pantoprazole produced significant protection in an ethanol- and stress-induced acute gastric ulcer and cysteamine-induced duodenal ulcer. The healing of the acetic acid-induced chronic gastric ulcer was also augmented with this combination. Both total proteins and mucin contents were significantly increased in indomethacin-induced gastric ulcers. Similarly, in pylorus ligation, the pepsin content of gastric juice, total acidity, and free acidity were reduced. Overall, both ulcer preventive effects and ulcer healing properties of the pantoprazole were significantly enhanced in animals who received the co-administration of carrot fruit (500 mg/kg).     

Improvement on ‘Multiparty Quantum Key Agreement with Four-Qubit Symmetric W State’

Recently, Wang et al. (Int J Theo Phys: pp. 3716–3726, 2018) proposed a multiparty quantum key agreement scheme with four-particles W state. Their protocol uses the delayed measurement technique, the block transmission technique, and the single decoy photon technique to determine a shared secret key between three or more participants. They claimed that their protocol could resist both internal/participant and external attacks. However, this work indicates that two dishonest participants can collude to get the private data of a participant who executes the protocol honestly. To solve this issue, a simple modification is suggested in this work.

     

Construction of a new family of Bernstein‐Kantorovich operators

In the present paper, we construct a new sequence of Bernstein‐Kantorovich operators depending on a parameter α. The uniform convergence of the operators and rate of convergence in local and global sense in terms of first‐ and second‐order modulus of continuity are studied. Some graphs and numerical results presenting the advantages of our construction are obtained. The last section is devoted to bivariate generalization of Bernstein‐Kantorovich operators and their approximation behaviors.     

Ornamental Plant Efficiency for Heavy Metals Phytoextraction from Contaminated Soils Amended with Organic Materials

Accumulation of heavy metals (HMs) by ornamental plants (OPs) from contaminated agriculture soils is a unique technique that can efficiently reduce the metal load in the food chain. Amaranthus tricolor L. has attractive characteristics acquiring a higher growth rate and large biomass when grown at heavy metal contaminated soils. Site-specific detailed information is not available on the use of A. tricolor plant in metal phytoremediation from the polluted sites. The study aimed to enhance the uptake of HMs (Pb, Zn, and Cu) via amending poultry litter extract (PLE), vinasse sugarcane (VSC), and humic acid (HA) as natural mobilized organic materials compared to ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA), as a common mobilized chemical agent by A. tricolor plant. The studied soils collected from Helwan, El-Gabal El-Asfar (Cairo Governorate), Arab El-Madabeg (Assiut Governorate), Egypt, and study have been conducted under pot condition. Our results revealed all organic materials in all studied soils, except EDTA in EL-Gabal El-Asfar soil, significantly increased the dry weight of the A. tricolor plant compared to the control treatment. The uptake of Pb and Zn significantly (p > 0.05) increased due to applying all organic materials to the studied soils. HA application caused the highest uptake as shown in Pb concentration by more than 5 times in Helwan soil and EDTA by 65% in El-Gabal El-Asfar soil while VSC increased it by 110% in El-Madabeg soil. Also, an increase in Zn concentration due to EDTA application was 58, 42, and 56% for Helwan, El-Gabal El-Asfar, and El-Madabeg soil, respectively. In all studied soils, the application of organic materials increased the remediation factor (RF) than the control. El-Madabeg soil treated with vinasse sugarcane gave the highest RF values; 6.40, 3.26, and 4.02% for Pb, Zn, and Cu, respectively, than the control. Thus, we identified A. tricolor as a successful ornamental candidate that, along with organic mobilization amendments, most efficiently develop soil health, reduce metal toxicity, and recommend remediation of heavy metal-contaminated soils. Additionally, long-term application of organic mobilization amendments and continued growth of A. tricolor under field conditions could be recommended for future directions to confirm the results.     

Synthesis,Characterization, and Magnetic Behavior of Cobalt-Ferrite Nanoparticles under Variant Temperature Conditions

Physics of the Solid State - Wet chemical method was applied for the synthesis of cobalt-ferrite nanoparticles. The physicochemical properties were investigated by number of analytical techniques....     

Solitary wave solutions of the improved KdV equation by VIM

The variational iteration method (VIM) is applied to solve numerically the improved Korteweg-de Vries equation (IKdV). A correction function is constructed with a general Lagrange multiplier that can be identified optimally via the variational theory. This technique provides a sequence of functions with easily computable components that converge rapidly to the exact solution of the IKdV equation. Propagation of single, interaction of two, and three solitary waves, and also birth of solitons have been discussed. Three invariants of motion have been evaluated to determine the conservation properties of the problem. This procedure is promising for solving other nonlinear equations.     

Activity of Compounds from Temperate Propolis against Trypanosoma brucei and Leishmania mexicana

Ethanolic extracts of samples of temperate zone propolis, four from the UK and one from Poland, were tested against three Trypanosoma brucei strains and displayed EC₅₀ values < 20 µg/mL. The extracts were fractionated, from which 12 compounds and one two-component mixture were isolated, and characterized by NMR and high-resolution mass spectrometry, as 3-acetoxypinobanksin, tectochrysin, kaempferol, pinocembrin, 4′-methoxykaempferol, galangin, chrysin, apigenin, pinostrobin, cinnamic acid, coumaric acid, cinnamyl ester/coumaric acid benzyl ester (mixture), 4′,7-dimethoxykaempferol, and naringenin 4′,7-dimethyl ether. The isolated compounds were tested against drug-sensitive and drug-resistant strains of T. brucei and Leishmania mexicana, with the highest activities ≤ 15 µM. The most active compounds against T. brucei were naringenin 4′,7 dimethyl ether and 4′methoxy kaempferol with activity of 15–20 µM against the three T. brucei strains. The most active compounds against L. mexicana were 4′,7-dimethoxykaempferol and the coumaric acid ester mixture, with EC₅₀ values of 12.9 ± 3.7 µM and 13.1 ± 1.0 µM. No loss of activity was found with the diamidine- and arsenical-resistant or phenanthridine-resistant T. brucei strains, or the miltefosine-resistant L. mexicana strain; no clear structure activity relationship was observed for the isolated compounds. Temperate propolis yields multiple compounds with anti-kinetoplastid activity.     

Construction of 1,3-disubstituted 4-oxo-1,4-dihydroquinolines as a potential antibacterial agents

Research on Chemical Intermediates - A novel series of 1,3-disubstituted 4-oxo-1,4-dihydroquinolines as antimicrobial agents were designed and synthesized. Their structures have been confirmed...     

Dynamical behavior and solution of nonlinear difference equation via Fibonacci sequence

In this paper, we study the behavior of the difference equation $x_{n+1}=ax_{n}+\dfrac{bx_{n}x_{n-1}}{cx_{n-1}+dx_{n-2}},~n=0,1,\ldots,$ where the initial conditions $x_{-2},\ x_{-1},\ x_{0}$ are arbitrary positive real numbers and $a,b,c,d$ are positive constants. Also, we give the solution of some special cases of this equation.