Development of a Chitosan/Nickel Phthalocyanine Composite Based Conductometric Micro-sensor for Methanol Detection

Thin-film composite of chitosan/nickel phthalocyanine (NiPc) was electrochemically deposited on the fingers of interdigitated gold electrodes, applying chronoamperometric polymerization technique. The presence of crystallized NiPc in the chitosan was confirmed by EDX and FTIR analysis. Acetone, ethanol, and methanol gas-sensing properties of the films prepared at optimum conditions were studied at atmospheric temperature, through differential measurements at an optimized frequency of 10 kHz, using a lock-in amplifier. The conductometric sensor presents the highest sensitivity of 60.2 μS.cm⁻¹(v/v) for methanol and 700 ppm as the limit of detection. For validation, the methanol content of a commercial rubbing alcohol was determined.     

Controllability for noninstantaneous impulsive semilinear functional differential inclusions without compactness

The first part of this paper considers the controllability for a functional semilinear differential inclusion governed by a family of operators $\{A\left(t\right):t\in [0,b]\}$ generating an evolution operator in a Banach space in the presence of noninstantaneous impulse effects. In the second part of this paper we study the controllability for a fractional noninstantaneous impulsive semilinear differential inclusion with delay, where the linear part is an infinitesimal generator of a $C_0?$semigroup. Using a weakly convergent criterion in the space of piecewise continuous functions and weak topology theory (for weak sequentially closed graph operators) we establish sufficient conditions to guarantee controllability results. Examples are given to illustrate the abstract results.     

Mangostanaxanthone VIII,a new xanthone from Garcinia mangostana and its cytotoxic activity

A new prenylated xanthone, mangostanaxanthone VIII (7) and six known metabolites: gartanin (1), 1,3,8-trihydroxy-2-(3-methyl-2-butenyl)-4-(3-hydroxy-3-methylbutanoyl)-xanthone (2), rubraxanthone (3), 1,3,6,7-tetrahydroxy-8-prenylxanthone (4), garcinone C (5), and xanthone I (9-hydroxycalabaxanthone) (6) were separated from the EtOAc-soluble fraction of the air-dried pericarps of Garcinia mangostana (Clusiaceae). Their structures have been verified on the basis of spectroscopic data analysis as well as comparison with the literature. The cytotoxic activity of 7 was assessed against MCF7, A549, and HCT116 cell lines using sulforhodamine B (SRB) assay. Compound 7 showed significant cytotoxic potential against MCF7 and A549 cell lines with IC₅₀s 3.01 and 1.96 μM, respectively compared to doxorubicin (0.06 and 0.44 μM, respectively). However, it exhibited moderate activity towards HCT116 cell line.     

Unsupervised Pattern Recognition Chemometrics for Distinguishing Different Egyptian Olive Varieties Using a New Integrated Densitometric Reversed-Phase High-Performance Thin-Layer Chromatography—Image Analysis Technique

JPC – Journal of Planar Chromatography – Modern TLC - The merits of chemometrics in categorizing different Egyptian olive chemovarieties based on their compositional integrity were...     

Basal Histamine H4 Receptor Activation: Agonist Mimicry by the Diphenylalanine Motif

Histamine H₄ receptor (H₄R) orthologues are G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) that exhibit species-dependent basal activity. In contrast to the basally inactive mouse H₄R (mH₄R), human H₄R (hH₄R) shows a high degree of basal activity. We have performed long-timescale molecular dynamics simulations and rigidity analyses on wild-type hH₄R, the experimentally characterized hH₄R variants S179M, F169V, F169V+S179M, F168A, and on mH₄R to investigate the molecular nature of the differential basal activity. H₄R variant-dependent differences between essential motifs of GPCR activation and structural stabilities correlate with experimentally determined basal activities and provide a molecular explanation for the differences in basal activation. Strikingly, during the MD simulations, F169^45.55 dips into the orthosteric binding pocket only in the case of hH₄R, thus adopting the role of an agonist and contributing to the stabilization of the active state. The results shed new light on the molecular mechanism of basal H₄R activation that are of importance for other GPCRs.     

Template‐Free Synthesis of Highly b‐Oriented MFI‐Type Zeolite Thin Films by Seeded Secondary Growth

Highly b‐oriented, closely packed, MFI zeolite films are prepared on seeded stainless‐steel plates using organic template‐free, secondary growth solutions, containing aluminum sulfate as a crystallization agent. The number of a‐oriented twin crystals is significantly reduced, and even eliminated, simply by restricting the pH value of the secondary growth solution to the narrow range of 11.1–11.3. Values of pH can be adjusted through the controlled addition of (NH₄)₂SO₄ or H₂SO₄ to secondary growth solutions of the composition (1 SiO₂:0.57 NaOH:137.5 H₂O:0.0050 (Al₂(SO₄)₃?18 H₂O)) or by simply decreasing the molar composition of NaOH with no extra additives.     

Modules over cluster-tilted algebras that do not lie on local slices

We characterize the indecomposable transjective modules over an arbitrary cluster-tilted algebra that do not lie on a local slice, and we provide a sharp upper bound for the number of (isoclasses of) these modules.