Siloxanes in Biogas: Approaches of Sampling Procedure and GC-MS Method Determination

A new approach of siloxane sampling based on impinger, micro-impinger, adsorption on active carbon, and direct TedlarBag methods followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was developed for the analysis of three linear (L2–L4) and four cyclic (D3–D5) volatile methyl siloxanes (VMSs). Three kinds of organic liquid-medium characterized by different polarities, namely acetone, methanol, and d-decane as siloxanes trap were arranged in the experiment which is widely discussed below. Thus, the GC-MS equipped with SUPELCOWAX-10 capillary column was employed to perform monitoring of VMS content in the analyzed biogas samples originating from landfill, wastewater treatment plants, and agriculture biogas plants. In all samples that have undergone the analysis, cyclic and linear VMSs were found in quantities exceeding 107.9 and 3.8 mg/m³, respectively. Significant differences between siloxanes concentrations depending on biogas origin were observed. Moreover, the high range of linearity (0.1 to 70.06 mg/m³), low LoD (0.01 mg/m³), low LoQ (0.04 mg/m³), and high recovery (244.1%) indicate that the procedure and can be applied in sensitive analyses of silica biogas contaminants. In addition to the above, the impinger method of sampling performed better than active-carbon Tube and TedlarBag, particularly for quantifying low concentrations of siloxanes. Overall, the evaluation of sampling methods for biogas collection simplified the analytical procedure by reducing the procedural steps, avoiding the use of solvents, as well as demonstrated its applicability for the testing of biogas quality.     

The Mitochondria-Independent Cytotoxic Effect of Leflunomide on RPMI-8226 Multiple Myeloma Cell Line

Leflunomide, an anti-inflammatory agent, has been shown to be effective in multiple myeloma (MM) treatment; however, the mechanism of this phenomenon has not been fully elucidated. The aim of the study was to assess the role of mitochondria and dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH) inhibition in the cytotoxicity of leflunomide in relation to the MM cell line RPMI 8226. The cytotoxic effect of teriflunomide—an active metabolite of leflunomide—was determined using MTT assay, apoptosis detection, and cell cycle analysis. To evaluate DHODH-dependent toxicity, the cultures treated with teriflunomide were supplemented with uridine. Additionally, the level of cellular thiols as oxidative stress symptom was measured as well as mitochondrial membrane potential and protein tyrosine kinases (PTK) activity. The localization of the compound in cell compartments was examined using HPLC method. Teriflunomide cytotoxicity was not abolished in uridine presence. Observed apoptosis occurred in a mitochondria-independent manner, there was also no decrease in cellular thiols level. Teriflunomide arrested cell cycle in the G2/M phase which is not typical for DHODH deficiency. PTK activity was decreased only at the highest drug concentration. Interestingly, teriflunomide was not detected in the mitochondria. The aforementioned results indicate DHODH- and mitochondria-independent mechanism of leflunomide toxicity against RPMI 8226 cell line.     

Comparison of the Microbiological Activities of Different Varieties of Hop (Humulus lupulus) Extracts by Thin-Layer Chromatography—Direct Bioautography

JPC – Journal of Planar Chromatography – Modern TLC - Commercially available hop pellets of different origins were extracted by use of ethanol and water, chromatographed on silica...     

Association equlibria in acetonitrile solution of tetracyanoquinodimethanides

Trimetric ion (TCNQ)^2?₃ has been discovered in mixed solutions of TCNQ and LiTCNQ in acetonitrile. The estimated association constant isK_T = 5.6 × 10¹⁰ øl² mol^?2.     

Proton transfer reactions from N-H acid [5,10,15,20-tetrakis(pentafluorophenyl)-21-H, 23-H-porphyrin] to strong bases in acetonitrile

Deprotonation of 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(pentafluorophenyl)-21-H, 23-H-porphyrin (PhF₅PorH₂) by various bases has been studied by ¹H NMR and kinetic methods. The kinetic parameters in acetonitrile were defined for proton transfer reactions yielding [NH]⁺ protonated bases and [NHN]⁻ anions with intramolecular hydrogen-bonded chains.     

A permutation test for the two-sample right-censored model

The paper presents a novel approach to solve a classical two-sample problem with right-censored data. As a result, an efficient procedure for verifying equality of the two survival curves is developed. It generalizes, in a natural manner, a well-known standard, that is, the log-rank test. Under the null hypothesis, the new test statistic has an asymptotic Chi-square distribution with one degree of freedom, while the corresponding test is consistent for a wide range of the alternatives. On the other hand, to control the actual Type I error rate when sample sizes are finite, permutation approach is employed for the inference. An extensive simulation study shows that the new test procedure improves upon classical solutions and popular recent developments in the field. An analysis of the real datasets is included. A routine, written in R, is attached as Supplementary Material.

     

Fractal Hamilton-Jacobi-KPZ equations

Nonlinear and nonlocal evolution equations of the form , where is a pseudodifferential operator representing the infinitesimal generator of a Lévy stochastic process, have been derived as models for growing interfaces in the case when the continuous Brownian diffusion surface transport is augmented by a random hopping mechanism. The goal of this paper is to study properties of solutions to this equation resulting from the interplay between the strengths of the ``diffusive' linear and ``hyperbolic' nonlinear terms, posed in the whole space , and supplemented with nonnegative, bounded, and sufficiently regular initial conditions.

     

Unified encoding for hyper-heuristics with application to bioinformatics

This paper introduces a new approach to applying hyper-heuristic algorithms to solve combinatorial problems with less effort, taking into account the modelling and algorithm construction process. We propose a unified encoding of a solution and a set of low level heuristics which are domain-independent and which change the solution itself. This approach enables us to address NP-hard problems and generate good approximate solutions in a reasonable time without a large amount of additional work required to tailor search methodologies for the problem in hand. In particular, we focused on solving DNA sequencing by hybrydization with errors, which is known to be strongly NP-hard. The approach was extensively tested by solving multiple instances of well-known combinatorial problems and compared with results generated by meta heuristics that have been tailored for specific problem domains.     

Minimization of the number of periodic points for smooth self-maps of simply-connected manifolds with periodic sequence of Lefschetz numbers

Let f be a smooth self-map of m-dimensional, m ≥ 4, smooth closed connected and simply-connected manifold, r a fixed natural number. For the class of maps with periodic sequence of Lefschetz numbers of iterations the authors introduced in [Graff G., Kaczkowska A., Reducing the number of periodic points in smooth homotopy class of self-maps of simply-connected manifolds with periodic sequence of Lefschetz numbers, Ann. Polon. Math. (in press)] the topological invariant J[f] which is equal to the minimal number of periodic points with the periods less or equal to r in the smooth homotopy class of f. In this paper the invariant J[f] is computed for self-maps of 4-manifold M with dimH ₂(M; ?) ≤ 4 and estimated for other types of manifolds. We also use J[f] to compare minimization of the number of periodic points in smooth and in continuous categories.