Simultaneous Determination of Vitamins D3 (Calcitriol,Cholecalciferol) and K2 (Menaquinone-4 and Menaquinone-7) in Dietary Supplements by UHPLC

The content and composition of dietary supplements is of great interest due to their increasing consumption and variety of available brand offered in the market. Accurate determination of vitamins is important for the improvement of dietary supplement quality and nutrition assessments. In this regard, the simultaneous determination of vitamin D3 (calcitriol—CT and cholecalciferol—CHL) and K2 (menaquinone-4—MK-4 and menaquinone-7—MK-7) in dietary supplements was developed by using ultra-high-pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC). The overall runtime per sample was above 35 min, with the retention times of 2.40, 6.59, 7.06, and 32.6 min for vitamin D3 (CT and CHL) and vitamin K2 (MK-4 and MK-7), respectively. The limits of detection and limits of quantification for the target nutritional compounds ranged between 0.04–0.05 µg/mL, respectively. The validation results indicated that the method had reasonable linearity (R² ≥ 0.9990), good recovery (>82%), satisfactory intra-day precision (≤1.9%) and inter-day precision (≤3.5%), and high selectivity and specificity. The validated UHPLC method was demonstrated to be precise, accurate, and robust for the simultaneous determination of vitamins D3 (CT and CHL) and K2 (MK-4 and MK-7) in dietary supplements.     

Crystal structures and thermal decomposition oftrans-Pd(Creat)2Cl2·2H2O andcis-Pt(Creat)2I2·3H2O

New complexes of the formulaetrans-Pd(Creat)₂Cl₂·2H₂O (I) andcis-Pt(Creat)₂I₂·3H₂O (II) have been prepared and their structures and stabilities studied by X-ray diffraction and thermal analysis. Both compounds have a squareplanar geometry, the two Cl atoms and N1 creatinine atoms are coordinated to Pd intrans configuration, while in compoundII the I atoms and N1 atoms are coordinated incis configuration. In spite of the earlier differences, the TG and DTA curves of the complexes show that their stability is very similar. Since an extended hydrogen bond system is present in the crystals, especially inII, the possible consequences in biological media are discussed briefly.

---

Kristallstrukturen und thermische Zersetzung vontrans-Pd(Creat)₂Cl₂·2H₂O undcis-Pt(Creat)₂I₂·3H₂O

Zusammenfassung Es wurden neue Komplexe der Formelntrans-Pd(Creat)₂Cl₂·2H₂O (I) undcis-Pt(Creat)₂I₂·3H₂O (II) hergestellt und ihre Strukturen und Stabilitäten mittels Röntgenstrukturanalyse bzw, thermischer Analyse untersucht. Beide Komplexe haben quadratisch-planare Struktur, die zwei Cl-Atome und die N1-Creatinin-Atome sind an Pd intrans-Konfiguration koordiniert, währenddessen in VerbindungII die I-Atome und die N1-Atome incis-Konfiguration zueinander stehen. Trotz früherer Differenzen zeigen die TG- und DTA-Kurven der Komplexe, daß ihre Stabilitäten sehr ähnlich sind. Da besonders inII ein ausgedehntes Wasserstoffbindungssystem vorhanden ist, werden auch mögliche Konsequenzen bezüglich biologischer Wirksamkeit kurz diskutiert.

     

Determination of the size of the representative volume element for random quasi-brittle composites

A representative volume element (RVE) is related to the domain size of a microstructure providing a “good” statistical representation of typical material properties. The size of an RVE for the class of quasi-brittle random heterogeneous materials under dynamic loading is one of the major questions to be answered in this paper. A new statistical strategy is thus proposed for the RVE size determination. The microstructure illustrating the methodology of the RVE size determination is a metal matrix composite with randomly distributed aligned brittle inclusions: the hydrided Zircaloy constituting nuclear claddings. For a given volume fraction of inclusions, the periodic RVE size is found in the case of overall elastic properties and of overall fracture energy. In the latter case, the term “representative” is discussed since the fracture tends to localize. A correlation factor between the “elastic” RVE and the “fracture” RVE is discussed.     

High frequency wave packets for the Schrödinger equation and its numerical approximations

We build Gaussian wave packets for the linear Schrödinger equation and its finite difference space semi-discretization and illustrate the lack of uniform dispersive properties of the numerical solutions as established in Ignat and Zuazua (2009) [6]. It is by now well known that bigrid algorithms provide filtering mechanisms allowing to recover the uniformity of the dispersive properties as the mesh size goes to zero. We analyze and illustrate numerically how these high frequency wave packets split and propagate under these bigrid filtering mechanisms, depending on how the fine grid/coarse grid filtering is implemented.     

Transforming Computed Energy Landscapes into Experimental Realities: The Role of Structural Rugosity

We exploit the possible link between structural surface roughness and difficulty of crystallisation. Polymorphs with smooth surfaces may nucleate and crystallise more readily than polymorphs with rough surfaces. The concept is applied to crystal structure prediction landscapes and reveals a promising complementary way of ranking putative crystal structures.     

Pd-catalysed methoxycarbonylation of vinylarenes using chiral monodentate phosphetanes and phospholane as ligands. Effect of substrate substituents on enantioselectivity

Palladium complexes bearing phospholane 1 and phosphetane 2-4 ligands have been synthesised to be used as catalyst precursors in the asymmetric methoxycarbonylation of vinyl arenes. Single crystals of the complex [PdCl2(2)2] II were obtained from a toluene solution and analysed by X-ray crystallography. Using these complexes, excellent regioselectivity (up to 99%) to the branched esters was obtained. Phosphetane ligands provide higher enantioselectivity than the phospholane under the same reaction conditions and an important influence of the substrate was observed. Enantioselectivity up to 50% was obtained using 4-methoxystyrene.     

White light transverse cooling of a helium beam

We report a study of transverse laser cooling on a metastable helium beam using spectrally broadened diode lasers (“white light") to increase its flux. For this purpose, beam profile and atomic flux versus laser power and other parameters have been characterized. We have performed experiments to compare this technique with other transverse cooling methods using monochromatic light. Best results are obtained with a “ziz-zag" configuration using “white light". Received 21 December 1998 and Received in final form 27 May 1999     

Density and wave function analysis of actinide complexes: what can fuzzy atom, atoms-in-molecules, Mulliken, Lowdin, and natural population analysis tell us?

Recent advances in computational methods have made it possible to calculate the wave functions for a wide variety of simple actinide complexes. Equally important is the ability to analyze the information contained therein and produce a chemically meaningful understanding of the electronic structure. Yet the performance of the most common wave function analyses for the calculation of atomic charge and bond order has not been thoroughly investigated for actinide systems. This is particularly relevant because the calculation of charge and bond order even in transition metal complexes is known to be fraught with difficulty. Here we use Mulliken, Lowdin, natural population analysis, atoms-in-molecules (AIM), and fuzzy atom techniques to determine the charges and bond orders of UO(2)(2+), PuO(2)(2+), UO(2), UO(2)Cl(4)(2-), UO(2)(CO)(5)(2+), UO(2)(CO)(4)(2+), UO(2)(CN)(5)(3-), UO(2)(CN)(4)(2-), UO(2)(OH)(5)(3-), and UO(2)(OH)(4)(2-). This series exhibits a clear experimental and computational trend in bond lengths and vibrational frequencies. The results indicate that Mulliken and Lowdin populations and bond orders are unreliable for the actinyls. Natural population analysis performs well after modification of the partitioning of atomic orbitals to include the 6d in the valence space. The AIM topological partitioning is insensitive to the electron donating ability of the equatorial ligands and the relative atomic volume of the formally U(VI) center is counterintuitively larger than that of O(2-) in the UO(2)(2+) core. Lastly, the calibrated fuzzy atom method yields reasonable bond orders for the actinyls at significantly reduced computational cost relative to the AIM analysis.