Walnut Oil Nanoemulsion: Optimization of the Emulsion Capacity,Cloudiness, Density,and Surface Tension

Response surface methodology (RSM) in conjunction with central composite rotatable design (CCRD) was employed to find out the influence of preparation properties of walnut oil/water nanoemulsion namely ultrasonic time (5–15 minutes), walnut oil content (4–10% w/w) and concentration ratio of Span 80 to Tween 80 (K ₀, 0.55–0.80) on response variables including emulsion capacity, cloudiness, density and surface tension. The calculated regression models with high value of coefficient of determination (0.910–0.973) and insignificant lack of fit test indicated satisfactory agreement of empirical models with experimental observations. The results revealed linear term of walnut oil concentration was the most significant (p < 0.05) parameter on the all responses. The overall optimum region to achieve the ideal characteristics was ultrasonic time of 11.74 minutes, walnut oil content of 4.00% (w/w) and K ₀ of 0.80.     

Catalytic Spectrophotometric Determination of Titanium(IV) Using Methylene Blue‐Ascorbic Acid Redox Reaction

A highly selective and sensitive catalytic method for the determination of trace amounts of titanium(IV) was developed. The method is based on the catalytic effect of titanium(IV) on the methylene blue‐ascorbic acid redox reaction. The reaction was followed spectrophotometrically by measuring the change in absorbance of methylene blue at 665 nm, 5 minutes after the initiation of the reaction. In this study experimental parameters were optimized and the effect of the presence of various cations and some anions on the determination of titanium(IV) was examined. The calibration graph was linear in the range of 3‐25 ng mL^?1 of titanium(IV). The relative standard deviation for the determination of 10 and 20 ng mL^?1 of titanium(IV) were 2.64% and 1.51%, respectively (n = 8). The detection limit calculated from three times of standard deviation of blank 3S_b was 0.6 ng mL^?1. The method was successfully applied to the determination of titanium(IV) in tap water and ore samples.     

利用MOF-253衍生氮掺杂碳限域效应促进Pt纳米单晶电催化剂的氧析出反应

目前,为了有效解决电化学能量转化反应动力学过程缓慢和商业化应用等问题,需要大力提高催化剂的电催化活性和稳定性,并大幅降低贵金属催化剂的用量.通常,铂(Pt)基催化剂对燃料电池的氧还原反应(ORR)和水电解过程的氢析出反应(HER)表现出很高的活性.然而,对于高效的金属-空气电池和水电解装置,其中的氧析出反应(OER)则需要高活性的非Pt电催化剂来降低电化学过电位及提高其对高电位的耐受性.虽然相较于Pt催化剂,IrO2和RuO2等贵金属催化剂表现出了更高的OER活性,然而,它们的稳定性差,难以满足实际应用需求,严重阻碍了其在金属-空气电池和水电解中的应用.通常,Pt对OER的低效催化主要归因于在OER电催化过程中Pt与电解液直接接触,导致Pt表面快速被氧化,形成Pt氧化物(Pt^+4O2和Pt^+2O)层.形成的Pt氧化物对OER不起催化作用,从而降低了Pt的利用率和总的水电解效率.为了避免Pt表面的快速氧化,实现高的OER性能,我们将Pt金属纳米粒子有效地限域在超薄功能多孔碳层内.前期,已有大量的有关金属基ORR和HER催化剂研究证明,这种策略对于稳定金属纳米颗粒非常有效,可有效避免金属催化剂的快速氧化,而且还可抑制金属颗粒迁移和团聚;此外,还有利于增强催化剂的导电性和离子物种的扩散能力,从而提高催化剂的电催化性能.然而,要达到提高金属催化剂OER电催化性能的目的,还需要设计一种具有优良结构的功能化异质原子掺杂多孔碳基限域材料.金属有机框架(MOF),特别是MOF-253,由于具有较高的柔韧性、丰富的孔、可控的几何结构和高比表面积,被认为是制备功能多孔碳基限域材料的理想前驱体.为此,通过结合功能多孔碳基材料的限域作用及MOF-253和超细Pt纳米单晶的优势,本文合成了MOF-253衍生氮掺杂碳(N/C)限域的Pt纳米单晶(Pt@N/C)核壳型电催化剂.制备的Pt-N-C框架不仅具有超薄的氮掺杂活性多孔碳保护层壳体(平均厚度为0.51 nm),还有具高度分散和稳定化的Pt纳米单晶核体;值得指出的是,因受到碳层的限域作用,即使经900℃的高温处理,Pt纳米单晶仍保持了较小的晶体尺寸(平均粒径仅为6.7 nm);此外,该催化剂的Pt载量较低,仅为6.1wt%(Pt@N/C-10).将其作为OER电催化剂,表现出优异的OER性能:在10 mA cm^-2电流密度下,其过电位仅为298 mV,低于商业IrO2催化剂(353 mV);而且,经2000周加速电位扫描后,其电位仅降低19.4 mV,也低于IrO2(23.3 mV).本文很好地证明了通过构建空间限域结构可以有效解决Pt等金属催化剂因表面氧化而导致OER动力学活性和稳定性低的问题.     

{\Re} -parts in (semi)hypergroups

In this article, first we generalize the concept of complete parts and γ-parts in semi-hypergroups and then we study ${\Re}$ -closures in semi-hypergroups. Finally, we investigate strongly regular relations and the quotient-induced structures.     

Synergistically Enhancing the Therapeutic Effect on Cancer,via Asymmetric Bioinspired Materials

The undesirable side effects of conventional chemotherapy are one of the major problems associated with cancer treatment. Recently, with the development of novel nanomaterials, tumor-targeted therapies have been invented in order to achieve more specific cancer treatment with reduced unfavorable side effects of chemotherapic agents on human cells. However, the clinical application of nanomedicines has some shortages, such as the reduced ability to cross biological barriers and undesirable side effects in normal cells. In this order, bioinspired materials are developed to minimize the related side effects due to their excellent biocompatibility and higher accumulation therapies. As bioinspired and biomimetic materials are mainly composed of a nanometric functional agent and a biologic component, they can possess both the physicochemical properties of nanomaterials and the advantages of biologic agents, such as prolonged circulation time, enhanced biocompatibility, immune modulation, and specific targeting for cancerous cells. Among the nanomaterials, asymmetric nanomaterials have gained attention as they provide a larger surface area with more active functional sites compared to symmetric nanomaterials. Additionally, the asymmetric nanomaterials are able to function as two or more distinct components due to their asymmetric structure. The mentioned properties result in unique physiochemical properties of asymmetric nanomaterials, which makes them desirable materials for anti-cancer drug delivery systems or cancer bio-imaging systems. In this review, we discuss the use of bioinspired and biomimetic materials in the treatment of cancer, with a special focus on asymmetric nanoparticle anti-cancer agents.     

Multiplexed Discrimination of Single Amino Acid Residues in Polypeptides in a Single SERS Hot Spot

The SERS-based detection of protein sequences with single-residue sensitivity suffers from signal dominance of aromatic amino acid residues and backbones, impeding detection of non-aromatic amino acid residues. Herein, we trap a gold nanoparticle in a plasmonic nanohole to generate a single SERS hot spot for single-molecule detection of 2 similar polypeptides (vasopressin and oxytocin) and 10 distinct amino acids that constitute the 2 polypeptides. Significantly, both aromatic and non-aromatic amino acids are detected and discriminated at the single-molecule level either at individual amino acid molecules or within the polypeptide chains. Correlated with molecular dynamics simulations, our results suggest that the signal dominance due to large spatial occupancy of aromatic rings of the polypeptide sidechains on gold surfaces can be overcome by the high localization of the single hot spot. The superior spectral and spatial discriminative power of our approach can be applied to single-protein analysis, fingerprinting, and sequencing.     

Quasi Right Factorization Structures as Presheaves

In this article the notion of quasi right factorization structure in a category X\cal{X} is given. The main result is a one to one correspondence between certain classes of quasi right factorization structures and 2-reflective subobjects of a predefined object in Lax(PrOrd^Xop) \bf{\it{L}}\it{ax}({\it{PrOrd}}^{\bf{\cal{X}}^{op}}). Also a characterization of quasi right factorization structures in terms of images is given. As an application, the closure operators are discussed and it is shown that quasi closed members of certain collections are quasi right factorization structures. Finally several examples are furnished.     

Comparison of Multi‐walled Carbon Nanotubes and Poly(3‐octylthiophene) as Ion‐to‐Electron Transducers in All‐Solid‐State Potassium Ion‐Selective Electrodes

Multi‐walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were compared with poly(3‐octylthiophene) (POT) as ion‐to‐electron transducer in all‐solid‐state potassium ion‐selective electrodes with valinomycin‐based ion‐selective membranes. MWCNTs and POT were mixed with the other components of the potassium ion‐selective membrane cocktail (valinomycin, KTpClPB, o‐NPOE, PVC, THF) which was then applied on a glassy carbon (GC) substrate to prepare single‐piece ion‐selective electrodes (SPISEs). Results from potentiometric and impedance measurements showed that the MWCNT‐based electrodes have a more reproducuible standard potential and a lower overall impedance than the electrodes based on POT. Both types of electrodes showed similar sensitivity to potassium ions and no redox sensitivity.     

On finite groups with few non-normal subgroups

In this paper we characterize the finite groups having exactly two conjugacy classes of non-normal subgroups.