Halloysite nanotubes: an eco-friendly adsorbent for the adsorption of Th(IV)/U(VI) ions from aqueous solution

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry - In this study, the halloysite nanotubes was characterized and the adsorption of Th(IV) and U(VI) on halloysite nanotubes was investigated as a...     

Pharmacokinetics of monoester‐diterpenoid alkaloids in myocardial infarction and normal rats after oral administration of Sini decoction by microdialysis combined with liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

Monoester‐diterpenoid alkaloids are the main bioactive components of Sini decoction, which is a well‐known traditional Chinese medicine formula for the treatment of myocardial infarction (MI) and heart failure in China. In this work, an ultra‐high‐performance liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry combined with microdialysis method was successfully established and applied for investigating for the first time comparative plasma pharmacokinetics of three monoester‐diterpenoid alkaloids (benzoylmesaconitine, benzoylaconitine and benzoylhypacoitine) in normal and MI rats after oral administration of Sini decoction. The statistical results of pharmacokinetic parameters demonstrated that benzoylmesaconitine, benzoylaconitine and benzoylhypacoitine showed lower peak concentration, longer half‐life, smaller area under the concentration–time curve, slower clearance, time to peak concentration and mean residence time in MI rats than in normal rats (p < 0.05), which indicated that monoester‐diterpenoid alkaloids exhibited lower systemic exposure and slower elimination in the MI rats. The results provided the experimental basis for understanding the metabolic fate and therapeutic effects of Sini decoction.     

Comparative pharmacokinetic study of four major bioactive components after oral administration of Zhi‐Zi‐Hou‐Po decoction in normal and corticosterone‐induced depressive rats

A highly selective and efficient LC–MS/MS method was developed to determine the plasma concentration of magnolol, hesperidin, neohesperidin and geniposide following oral administration of Zhi‐Zi‐Hou‐Po decoction in normal and depressed rats. Plasma samples were pretreated by protein precipitation with methanol. Chromatographic separation was performed on an XTerra^® MS C₁₈ column using a gradient elution with a mobile phase composed of acetonitrile–0.1% aqueous formic acid. The proposed method was validated to be specific, accurate and precise for the analytes determination in plasma samples. The calibration curves displayed good linearity over definite concentration ranges for the analytes. The intra‐ and inter‐day precision of the proposed method at three different levels were all within <11.13% and the relative errors ranged from ?8.46 to 8.93%. The recovery of the four compounds ranged from 82.72 to 89.08% and no apparent matrix effect was observed during sample analysis. After full validation, the established method was successfully applied for comparing the pharmacokinetics of four components between normal and depressed rats. The results showed that the AUC and C_max of four analytes in depressed rats were significantly different from those in normal rats and might provide helpful information to guide the clinical use of Zhi‐Zi‐Hou‐Po to treat depression.     

A chaotic secure communication scheme based on synchronization of double-layered and multiple complex networks

Nonlinear Dynamics - In this paper, we mainly propose a chaotic secure communication scheme which is based on the synchronization of double-layered and multiple complex dynamical networks. Compared...     

Linear codes from support designs of ternary cyclic codes

Designs, Codes and Cryptography - For a long time, the literature has demonstrated that designs and codes are exciting topics for combinatorics and coding theory. Linear codes and t-designs are, in...     

Electrochemical detection of nitrate,nitrite and ammonium for on-site water quality monitoring

This review examines the most recent electrochemical developments for nitrate, nitrite and ammonium detection for on-site water monitoring. There remains a high demand for effective field-based detection of the dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) analytes to aid in mitigating nitrogen loading. Electrochemical approaches show increasing potential to fill this role as advancements in nanotechnology continually improve analytical performance and on-site applicability. However, translating these improvements into the field still faces the resonating challenges of reaching analytical proficiency (selectivity, sensitivity, robustness, stability), practical end-user functionality, minimal matrix interferences and cost effectiveness. Herein, we elaborate on these challenges via a critical evaluation of current studies and examine how realistic the prospects of on-site nitrate, nitrite and ammonium are. We also present recommendations in addressing these gaps to conclude the review.     

Modulating Charge Carrier Efficient Separation Enabled by Lewis Base Modification in Paper-based Photoelectrochemical Sensor

The separation efficiency of charge carriers determines the analytical sensitivity of the paper-based photoelectrochemical sensor. Herein, the Lewis base modification strategy is proposed to promote the carrier separation through an in-situ ion exchange method. Firstly, three-dimensional paper-based hierarchically TiO₂ (PHT) arrays are prepared with the one-step hydrothermal method. With the aid of Lewis base, the photo-induced charge separation efficiency and the photocurrent signal are obviously increased. Ultimately, sensitive sensing of prostate specific antigen (PSA) is achieved and the linear range is 1 pg/mL–100 ng/mL with the detection limitation of 0.3 pg/mL.     

Synthesis and Characterization of Hydrophilic Trityl Radical TFO for Biomedical and Biophysical Applications

Tetrathiatriarylmethyl (TAM, trityl) radicals have found wide applications as spin probes/labels for EPR spectroscopy and imaging, and as polarizing agents for dynamic nuclear polarization. The high hydrophilicity of TAM radicals is essential for their biomedical applications. However, the synthesis of hydrophilic TAM radicals (e.g., OX063) is extremely challenging and has only been reported in the patent literature, to date. Herein, an efficient synthesis of a highly water-soluble TAM radical bis(8-carboxyl-2,2,6,6-tetramethylbenzo[1,2-d:4,5-d′]bis([1,3]dithiol-4-yl)-mono-(8-carboxyl-2,2,6,6-tetrakis(2-hydroxyethyl)benzo[1,2-d:4,5-d′]bis([1,3]dithiol-4-yl)methyl (TFO), which contains four additional hydroxylethyl groups, relative to the Finland trityl radical CT-03, is reported. Similar to OX063, TFO exhibits excellent properties, including high water solubility in phosphate buffer, low log P, low pK_a, long relaxation times, and negligible binding with bovine serum albumin. On the other hand, TFO has a sharper EPR line and higher O₂ sensitivity than those of OX063. Therefore, in combination with its facile synthesis, TFO should find wide applications in magnetic resonance related fields and this synthetic approach would shed new light on the synthesis of other hydrophilic TAM radicals.     

Short-Distance Teleportation of an Arbitrary Two-Qubit State Via a Bell State

We propose a scheme for teleportation of an arbitrary two-qubit state by using a Bell state as the quantum channel working together with an auxiliary qubit. Our scheme needs less entanglement resource, but at the cost of shortening teleportation distance. This is because that in order to successfully recover the teleported state, both sender and receiver need to implement quantum-gate operations on the shared auxiliary qubit. So, the auxiliary qubit must be close to both sender and receiver. Otherwise, the sender and receiver cannot carry out quantum-gate operations on it. Thus, our scheme is invalid for long-distance teleportation. But for short-distance teleportation, our scheme is an optimal choice because it requires less entanglement resource. From a practical point of view, our scheme is very promising for application in quantum teleportation on chip.