Pressurized hot water extraction (PHWE)

Pressurized hot water extraction (PHWE) has become a popular green extraction method for different classes of compounds present in numerous kinds of matrices such as environmental, food and botanical samples. PHWE is also used in sample preparation to extract organic contaminants from foodstuff for food safety analysis and soils/sediments for environmental monitoring purposes. The main parameters which influence its extraction efficiency are namely the temperature, extraction time, flow rates and addition of modifiers/additives. Among these different parameters studied, temperature is described as the most important one. It is reported that the extraction of certain compounds is rather dependent on pressurized water with different applied temperature. Thus, the stability and reduced solubilities of certain compounds at elevated temperatures are highlighted in this review. With some modifications, a scaled-up PHWE could extract a higher amount of desirable compounds from solid and powdered samples such as plant and food materials. The PHWE extracts from plants are rich in chemical compounds or metabolites which can be a potential lead for drug discovery or development of disease-resistant food crops.     

High oxygen pressures and the stabilization of a new mixed valence Cu(III)/Cu(IV)

Abstract

The Cu(III) oxides were investigated first for the unusual copper oxidation state and then for the high-Tc superconductivity. In the last case this property is observed when a mixed copper valence is stabilized : Cu(I)/Cu(II) or Cu(II)/Cu(III). A new mixed valence Cu(III)/Cu(IV) has been stabilized in the three dimensional lattice of the perovskite-type oxide Lal_-xSr_xCuO₃ (0 ≥ ′ ≥ 0,25). Chemical analysis and XPS study confirm the mixed valence. This compound shows metallic properties with an broadening of the conduction band compared to LaCu0₃. Such a behaviour can be explained either by the increase of the covalence of the average Cu-0 bond or by the decrease of the structural distortion induced by the substitution of Sr(II) for La(III). No superconducting property has been detected down to 4K.     

Piezoelectric PMN-PT fibre hydrophone for ultrasonic transducer calibration

A newly developed ceramic fibre hydrophone with an active element as small as 0.25 mm in diameter is described in this work. Lead magnesium niobate-lead titanate (PMN-PT) ceramic fibre with a nominal composition of 0.65Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃-0.35PbTiO₃ was fabricated by an extrusion method. PMN-PT single crystals were ground to a powder form and then mixed with poly(acrylic) acid to form a homogenous slurry. The fibre was extruded by pressing the slurry through a spinneret and then sintering at 1250 °C for crystallization. The electrical characteristics of the PMN-PT fibre were evaluated by measuring the relative permittivity and the impedance spectrum. A piezoelectric PMN-PT fibre hydrophone was fabricated and its sensitivity, angular response, and spatial resolution were evaluated. The fibre hydrophone provides good spatial resolution, angular response and receiving sensitivity. PACS 43.58.+z; 77.84.Dy     

Hidden charge 2e Boson in doped Mott insulators

We construct the low-energy theory of a doped Mott insulator, such as the high-temperature superconductors, by explicitly integrating over the degrees of freedom far away from the chemical potential. For either hole or electron doping, a charge 2e bosonic field emerges at low energy. The charge 2e boson mediates dynamical spectral weight transfer across the Mott gap and creates a new charge e excitation by binding a hole. The result is a bifurcation of the electron dispersion below the chemical potential as observed recently in angle-resolved photoemission on Pb-doped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta (Pb2212).     

Determination of metabolites in Uncaria sinensis by HPLC and GC-MS after green solvent microwave-assisted extraction

Uncaria sinensis (Oliv.) Havil (Rubiaceae) has been used as an important Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) herb for the treatment of fevers and various nervous disorders. The major bioactive secondary metabolites from different classes of chemical compounds, i.e. organic acid, flavonoid and alkaloid, present in this TCM herb, namely catechin, caffeic acid, epicatechin and rhynchophylline, were extracted by microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) method with ultra-pure water as the extraction solvent. The optimal extraction conditions for this green solvent MAE method were found to be 100 °C for 20 min. The recoveries of the compounds were found to be comparable to that of heating under reflux using ultra-pure water for 60 min. The method precision (RSD, n = 6) was found to vary from 0.19% to 5.60% for the proposed method on different days for the secondary metabolites. Simultaneously, the key primary metabolites such as sucrose and phenylalanine for the biosynthesis of bioactive secondary metabolites were successfully characterized by GC-MS. Furthermore, an approach using the combination of primary and secondary metabolite profiling based on their chemical fingerprints with Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was successfully developed to evaluate the quality of U. sinensis obtained from different sources. This approach was shown to be feasible in discriminating U. sinensis from different origins and thus a potential application for the quality control of other medicinal herbs.     

Bayesian analysis of constant elasticity of variance models

This paper focuses on the estimation of some models in finance and in particular, in interest rates. We analyse discretized versions of the constant elasticity of variance (CEV) models where the normal law showing up in the usual discretization of the diffusion part is replaced by a range of heavy‐tailed distributions. A further extension of the model is to allow the elasticity of variance to be a parameter itself. This generalized model allows great flexibility in modelling and simplifies the model implementation considerably using the scale mixtures representation. The mixing parameters provide a means to identify possible outliers and protect inference by down‐weighting the distorting effects of these outliers. For parameter estimation, Bayesian approach is adopted and implemented using the software WinBUGS (Bayesian inference using Gibbs sampler). Results from a real data analysis show that an exponential power distribution with a random shape parameter, which is highly leptokurtic compared with the normal distribution, forms the best CEV model for the data. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Total synthesis of α- and β-panasinsene

α- and β-Panasinsene have been synthesized by a route which employs intramolecular cuprous triflate catalyzed photocyclization of an olefin with an allylic alcohol.