Spectral,electrochemical and computational investigations on the host–guest interaction of Coumarin-460 with <Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>-sulfonatocalix[4]arene

The supramolecular host–guest investigation of Coumarin 460 (C460), a salient coumarin family dye molecule is studied with a noteworthy host molecule, p-sulfonatocalix[4]arene (p-SC4). The investigation is carried out by both experimental and theoretical approach. The binding affinity of C460 with p-SC4 is experimentally studied using absorption, emission, excited state lifetime and Cyclic Voltammetry methods. The binding constant is around 10³ M^??1, which shows potent binding. The binding stoichiometry is 1:1. The binding orientations and binding energies are studied using computational simulations. The mode of binding is also established using NMR spectral techniques.     

Calcium Alginate Bead-mediated Enhancement of the Selective Recovery of a Lead Novel Antifungal Bacillomycin Variant

In the pursuit of new antifungal compounds, five coproduced lipopeptide variants (AF₁ to AF₅) from wild-type Bacillus subtilis RLID 12.1 were identified in our previous study. Out of five, AF₄ was identified as a novel lead molecule belonging to the bacillomycin family showing less cytotoxicity at its respective minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) evaluated against 81 strains of Candida and Cryptococcus species (including clinical isolates); besides this, AF₄ purified in the present study exhibited encouraging MIC values against 10 clinical mycelial fungi. Aiming for a selective production augmentation of AF₄ lipopeptide variant, a new fermentation media comprising malt extract (1.01%), dextrose (0.55%), peptone (1.79%), MnSO₄ (2 mM), and NaCl (0.5%) was formulated. Maximum production of 954.8?±?10.8 mg/L was achieved with 44% selectivity at 30 °C compared to unoptimized conditions (186.4?±?6.1 mg/L). Use of calcium alginate beads in the formulated media during the onset of lipopeptide production resulted in an augmentation in the selectivity of the most efficacious AF₄ variant to about 72% presumably due to attenuation of other coproduced lipopeptide variants AF₁ and AF₂. Difference in yield of lipopeptides varied with bead size, bead preparation ratios, and sodium alginate concentrations. Use of Ca-alginate beads in the upstream production process of the lead AF₄ variant may be considered as a novel strategy to address the potential challenge that may arise during the scale-up and downstream processing steps. Another significant finding derived from the study is that the proportion of bacillomycin variants of B. subtilis RLID 12.1 could be controlled by temperature and metal ions under static and shaking conditions.     

Poly(vinyl alcohol)-α-chitin composites reinforced by oil palm empty fruit bunch fiber-derived nanocellulose

Poly(vinyl alcohol)-α-chitin composite films reinforced by oil palm empty fruit bunch fiber-derived nanocellulose were prepared by casting technique. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis revealed partial miscibility between chitin and poly(vinyl alcohol) through hydrogen bonding, as supported by differential scanning calorimetry and field emission scanning electron microscopy. Tensile strength of the poly(vinyl alcohol)/chitin films increased with α-chitin content varied from 10 to 30?wt%, which was from 29.06 to 39.27?MPa. With the addition of 1?wt% nanocellulose, a maximum improvement of 57.64 and 50.66% in terms of tensile strength and Young’s modulus was achieved, respectively.     

Binuclear iron(III) compounds with bidentate bases

Summary Binuclear iron(III) derivatives, Fe₂Cl(anth)₅, Fe₂Cl(salH)₅, Fe₂Cl(acac)₅ and Fe₂Cl(quin)₅ · quinH have been prepared by reacting Fe₂Cl(OH)₂(AcO)₃ · 2AcOH with anthranilic acid (anthH), salicylic acid (salH₂), acetylacetone (acacH) and 8-hydroxyquinoline (quinH), respectively. These compounds have been characterised by molecular weight, conductance, i.r. spectral, magnetic susceptibility and Mössbauer measurements.     

Studies on chromium(III) complexes of some new dithiocarbamato ligands

Summary Tris-chelates of chromium(III) have been synthesised with five new dithiocarbamates, [RR'NCS₂]^–, where R=PhCH₂ and R/t'=H, PhCH₂, Me, Et and i-Pr. Magnetic moments together with electronic, i.r. and e.s.r spectra of the complexes have been described. Various ligand-field parameters have been evaluated and discussed.     

Local dependence functions for some families of bivariate distributions and total positivity

The purpose of this paper is to investigate a very useful application of a certain local dependence function γ_f(x,y), which was considered recently by Holland and Wang [20]. An interesting property of γ_f(x,y) is that the underlying joint density f(x,y) is TP₂ (that is, totally positive of order 2) if and only if . This gives an elegant way to investigate the TP₂ property of any bivariate distribution. For the Saramanov family, the Ali-Mikhail-Haq family of bivariate distributions and the family of bivariate elliptical distributions, we derive the local dependence function and obtain conditions for f(x,y) to be TP₂. These families are quite rich and include many other large classes of bivariate distributions as their special cases. Similar conditions are obtained for bivariate distributions with exponential conditionals and bivariate distributions with Pareto conditionals.     

Almost Contact Lagrangian Submanifolds of Nearly Kaehler 6-Sphere

For a Lagrangian submanifold M of S ⁶ with nearly Kaehler structure, we provide conditions for a canonically induced almost contact metric structure on M by a unit vector field, to be Sasakian. Assuming M contact metric, we show that it is Sasakian if and only if the second fundamental form annihilates the Reeb vector field ξ, furthermore, if the Sasakian submanifold M is parallel along ξ, then it is the totally geodesic 3-sphere. We conclude with a condition that reduces the normal canonical almost contact metric structure on M to Sasakian or cosymplectic structure.     

Coupling vs. conductance for the Jerrum–Sinclair chain*

We address the following question: is the causal coupling method as strong as the conductance method in showing rapid mixing of Markov chains? A causal coupling is a coupling which uses only past and present information, but not information about the future. We answer the above question in the negative by showing that there exists a bipartite graph G such that any causal coupling argument on the Jerrum–Sinclair Markov chain for sampling almost uniformly from the set of perfect and near perfect matchings of G must necessarily take time exponential in the number of vertices in G. In contrast, the above Markov chain on G has been shown to mix in polynomial time using conductance arguments. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 18: 1–17, 2001     

Pulsatile flow between permeable beds

Pulsatile flow of a viscous fluid between two permeable beds is analyzed. The flow between and through the permeable beds are governed by the Navier-Stokes equations and Darcy's law, respectively. The velocity field and the volume flux are obtained for several cases and discussed. Further, when the permeability parameter k→0, the results agree with those of Wang (J. Appl. Mech. 38 (1971) 553).