Utilization of oxidation reactions for the spectrophotometric determination of captopril using brominating agents

Three simple, accurate and sensitive methods (A–C) for the spectrophotometric assay of captopril (CPL) in bulk drug, in dosage forms and in the presence of its oxidative degradates have been described. The methods are based on the bromination of captopril with a solution of excess brominating mixture in hydrochloric acid medium. After bromination, the excess brominating mixture is followed by the estimation of surplus bromine by three different reaction schemes. In the first method (A), the determination of the residual bromine is based on its ability to bleach the indigo carmine dye and measuring the absorbance at 610 nm. Method B, involves treating the unreacted bromine with a measured excess of iron(II) and the remaining iron(II) is complexed with 1,10-phenanthroline and the increase in absorbance is measured at 510 nm. In method (C), the surplus bromine is treated with excess of iron(II) and the resulting iron(III) is complexed with thiocyanate and the absorbance is measured at 478 nm. In all the methods, the amount of bromine reacted corresponds to the drug content. The different experimental parameters affecting the development and stability of the color are carefully studied and optimized. Beer's law is valid within a concentration range of 0.4–6.0, 0.4–2.8 and 1.2–4.8 μg mL^?1 for methods A, B and C, respectively. The calculated apparent molar absorptivity was found to be 5.16 × 10⁴, 9.95 × 10⁴ and 1.74 × 10⁵ L mol^?1 cm^?1, for methods A, B and C, respectively. Sandell's sensitivity, correlation coefficients, detection and quantification limits are also reported. No interference was observed from common additives found in pharmaceutical preparations. The proposed methods are successfully applied to the determination of CPL in the tablet formulations with mean recoveries of 99.94–100.11% and the results were statistically compared with those of a reference method by applying Student's t- and F-test.     

Plasmonic nanoloop array antenna

In this Letter, we create an optical nanoantenna array composed of parasitic plasmonic loops that can enhance radiation characteristics and direct the optical energy successfully. Three metallic loops inspired by the concept of the Yagi-Uda antenna are optimized around the region where they feature high scattering performance to control the radiation beam. The loop geometry, when compared to the dipole configuration, has the benefit of using the available aperture in an effective way to provide higher directivity. The angular emission of the nanoloop array antenna is highly directive, and a directivity of 8.2 dB for upward radiation is established.     

On the construction of normal wildly ramified extensions over Q p , (p ≠ 2)

Let p be an odd prime number, and let Q _p be the field of rational p-adic numbers.The aim of this work is the determination of the standard form of an Eisenstein polynomial defining a normal wildly ramified extension of Q _p . We prove first the equivalence between normality and cyclicity, give some essential normality conditions for the general case (degree p ⁿ ), then we solve the problem completely for the case (degree p ²) also, we obtain that the normality depends on seven congruences modulo p ^m between the coefficients of the considered polynomial with just m = 2 or 3. Note that the case (degree p) was solved by Öystein Ore (see Math. Annalen 102 (1930), 283–304). Also examples are given.     

On the Minkowski planes constructed by Artzy and Groh

The Minkowski planes constructed by R. Artzy and H. Groh [1] are characterized among the locally, connected and finite dimensional Minkowski planes as strongly semi-(p, w)-transitive Minkowski planes (see Theorem 2). The types of the Artzy-Groh planes in the typification of the Minkowski planes by M. Klein are determined (see Proposition 4). The second author was supported by a DAAD scholarship for a research visit at TU München. He sincerely thanks the Zentrum Mathematik der TU München for their hospitality.     

Groups with a ternary equivalence relation

We consider in a group \((G,\cdot )\) the ternary relation

$$\begin{aligned} \kappa := \{(\alpha , \beta , \gamma ) \in G^3 \ | \ \alpha \cdot \beta ^{-1} \cdot \gamma = \gamma \cdot \beta ^{-1} \cdot \alpha \} \end{aligned}$$

and show that \(\kappa \) is a ternary equivalence relation if and only if the set \( \mathfrak Z \) of centralizers of the group G forms a fibration of G (cf. Theorems 2, 3). Therefore G can be provided with an incidence structure

$$\begin{aligned} \mathfrak G:= \{\gamma \cdot Z \ | \ \gamma \in G , Z \in \mathfrak Z(G) \}. \end{aligned}$$

We study the automorphism group of \((G,\kappa )\), i.e. all permutations \(\varphi \) of the set G such that \( (\alpha , \beta , \gamma ) \in \kappa \) implies \((\varphi (\alpha ),\varphi (\beta ),\varphi (\gamma ))\in \kappa \). We show \(\mathrm{Aut}(G,\kappa )=\mathrm{Aut}(G,\mathfrak G)\), \(\mathrm{Aut} (G,\cdot ) \subseteq \mathrm{Aut}(G,\kappa )\) and if \( \varphi \in \mathrm{Aut}(G,\kappa )\) with \(\varphi (1)=1\) and \(\varphi (\xi ^{-1})= (\varphi (\xi ))^{-1}\) for all \(\xi \in G\) then \(\varphi \) is an automorphism of \((G,\cdot )\). This allows us to prove a representation theorem of \(\mathrm{Aut}(G,\kappa )\) (cf. Theorem 6) and that for \(\alpha \in G \) the maps

$$\begin{aligned} \tilde{\alpha }\ : \ G \rightarrow G;~ \xi \mapsto \alpha \cdot \xi ^{-1} \cdot \alpha \end{aligned}$$

of the corresponding reflection structure \((G, \widetilde{G})\) (with \( \tilde{G} := \{\tilde{\gamma }\ | \ \gamma \in G \}\)) are point reflections. If \((G ,\cdot )\) is uniquely 2-divisible and if for \(\alpha \in G\), \(\alpha ^{1\over 2}\) denotes the unique solution of \(\xi ^2=\alpha \) then with \(\alpha \odot \beta := \alpha ^{1\over 2} \cdot \beta \cdot \alpha ^{1\over 2}\), the pair \((G,\odot )\) is a K-loop (cf. Theorem 5).

     

Convergence of Fourier spectral method for resonant long-short nonlinear wave interaction

In this paper, the evolution equations with nonlinear term describing the resonance interaction between the long wave and the short wave are studied. The semi-discrete and fully discrete Crank-Nicholson Fourier spectral schemes are given. An energy estimation method is used to obtain error estimates for the approximate solutions. The numerical results obtained are compared with exact solution and found to be in good agreement.     

Template tailoring: Accurate determination of heterozygous alleles using peptide nucleic acid and dideoxyNTP

Measurement of the length of DNA fragments plays a pivotal role in genetic mapping, disease diagnostics, human identification and forensic applications. PCR followed by electrophoresis is used for DNA length measurement of STRs, a process that requires labeled primers and allelic ladders as standards to avoid machine error. Sequencing‐based approaches can be used for STR analysis to eliminate the requirement of labeled primers and allelic ladder. However, the limiting factor with this approach is unsynchronized polymerization in heterozygous sample analysis, in which alleles with different lengths can lead to imbalanced heterozygote peak height ratios. We have developed a rapid DNA length measurement method using peptide nucleic acid and dideoxy dNTPs to “tailor” DNA templates for accurate sequencing to overcome this hurdle. We also devised an accelerated “dyad” pyrosequencing strategy, such that the combined approach can be used as a faster, more accurate alternative to de novo sequencing. Dyad sequencing interrogates two bases at a time by allowing the polymerase to incorporate two nucleotides to DNA template, cutting the analysis time in half. In addition, for the first time, we show the effect of peptide nucleic acid as a blocking probe to stop polymerization, which is essential to analyze the heterozygous samples by sequencing. This approach provides a new platform for rapid and cost‐effective DNA length measurement for STRs and resequencing of small DNA fragments.     

Indirect spectrophotometric determination of gentamicin and vancomycin antibiotics based on their oxidation by potassium permanganate

Four simple, accurate, sensitive and economical procedures (A–D) for the estimation of gentamicin sulphate and vancomycin hydrochloride, both in pure form and in pharmaceutical formulations have been developed. The methods are based on the oxidation of the studied drugs by a known excess of potassium permanganate in sulphuric acid medium and subsequent determination of unreacted oxidant by reacting it with amaranth dye (method A), acid orange II (method B), indigocarmine (method C) and methylene blue (method D), in the same acid medium at a suitable λ_max=521, 485, 610 and 664 nm, respectively. The reacted oxidant corresponds to the drug content. Regression analysis of Beer-Lambert plots showed good correlations in the concentration ranges 4–8, 3–8, 4–9 and 5–9 μg ml⁻¹ with gentamicin and 4–8, 1.5–4, 1.5–4 and 3.5–5.5 μg ml⁻¹ with vancomycin for methods A, B, C, and D, respectively. The molar absorptivity, sandell sensitivity, detection and quantification limits were calculated. The stoichiometric ratios for the cited drugs were studied. The optimum reaction conditions and other analytical parameters were evaluated. The influence of the substance commonly employed as excipients with these drugs were studied. The proposed methods were applied to the determination of these drugs in pharmaceutical formulations. The results have demonstrated that the methods are equally accurate and reproducible as the official methods.     

Adsorption Capacities of Iron Hydroxide for Arsenate and Arsenite Removal from Water by Chemical Coagulation: Kinetics,Thermodynamics and Equilibrium Studies

Arsenic (As)-laden wastewater may pose a threat to biodiversity when released into soil and water bodies without treatment. The current study investigated the sorption properties of both As(III, V) oxyanions onto iron hydroxide (FHO) by chemical coagulation. The potential mechanisms were identified using the adsorption models, ζ-potential, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry (FT-IR) analysis. The results indicate that the sorption kinetics of pentavalent and trivalent As species closely followed the pseudo-second-order model, and the adsorption rates of both toxicants were remarkably governed by pH as well as the quantity of FHO in suspension. Notably, the FHO formation was directly related to the amount of ferric chloride (FC) coagulant added in the solution. The sorption isotherm results show a better maximum sorption capacity for pentavalent As ions than trivalent species, with the same amount of FHO in the suspensions. The thermodynamic study suggests that the sorption process was spontaneously exothermic with increased randomness. The ζ-potential, FT-IR and XRD analyses confirm that a strong Fe-O bond with As(V) and the closeness of the surface potential of the bonded complex to the point of zero charge (pH_zpc) resulted in the higher adsorption affinity of pentavalent As species than trivalent ions in most aquatic conditions. Moreover, the presence of sulfates, phosphates, and humic and salicylic acid significantly affected the As(III, V) sorption performance by altering the surface properties of Fe precipitates. The combined effect of charge neutralization, complexation, oxidation and multilayer chemisorption was identified as a major removal mechanism. These findings may provide some understanding regarding the fate, transport and adsorption properties onto FHO of As oxyanions in a complex water environment.     

Micellar effects on the rates of the condensation reaction between copper(II)‐histidine complex and ninhydrin

The kinetics of formation of N‐diketohydrindylidenehistidinatocopper(II) complex has been investigated in the presence of cationic cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) surfactant in aqueous medium (pH = 5.0). Similarly in aqueous solution, the reaction followed irreversible first‐order kinetics with respect to [Ninhydrin]. Although the reaction mechanism remained unaltered by micelles, a typical k_ψ‐[CTAB] profile was observed, that is, with a progressive increase in [CTAB], the reaction rate increased, reached a maximum value, and then decreased. The results are treated quantitatively in terms of the kinetic pseudo‐phase model. Activation parameters were also evaluated and a large decrease in ΔS^# shows the formation of a well‐structured activated complex. It was found that anionic sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) and non‐ionic Triton X‐100 (TX‐100) surfactants have no effect on the reaction. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Chem Kinet 31: 729–736, 1999