The interaction between ketamine and some crown ethers in common organic solvents studied by NMR: the effect of donating atoms and ligand structure

1H NMR spectroscopy was used to investigate the stoichiometry and stability of the drug ketamine cation complexes with some crown ethers, such as 15-crown-5 (15C5), aza-15-crown-5 (A15C5), 18-crown-6 (18C6), aza-18-crown-6 (A18C6), diaza-18-crown-6 (DA18C6), dibenzyl-diaza-18-crown-6 (DBzDA18C6) and cryptant [2,2,2] (C222) in acetonitrile (AN), dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) and methanol (MeOH) at 27 degrees C. In order to evaluate the formation constants of the ketamine cation complexes, the CH3 protons chemical shift (on the nitrogen atom of ketamine) was measured as function of ligand/ketamine mole ratio. The formation constant of resulting complexes were calculated by the computer fitting of chemical shift versus mole ratio data to appropriate equations. A significant chemical shift variation was not observed for 15C5 and 18C6. The stoichiometry of the mono aza and diaza ligands are 1:1 and 1:2 (ligand/ketamine), respectively. In all of the solvents studied, DA18C6 formed more stable complexes than other ligands. The solvent effect on the stability of these complexes is discussed.     

Some new large sets of t-designs

We investigate the existence of some large sets of size nine. We take advantage of the recursive and direct constructing method to show that in cases $LS\left[9\right](2,4,v)$ the trivial necessary condition is also sufficient. In particular $LS\left[9\right](2,4,29)$ is constructed. This fills a gap.     

A Revised Pascoletti–Serafini Scalarization Method for Multiobjective Optimization Problems

The presented study deals with the scalarization techniques for solving multiobjective optimization problems. The Pascoletti–Serafini scalarization technique is considered, and it is attempted to sidestep two weaknesses of this method, namely the inflexibility of the constraints and the difficulties of checking proper efficiency. To this end, two modifications for the Pascoletti–Serafini scalarization technique are proposed. First, by including surplus variables in the constraints and penalizing the violations in the objective function, the inflexibility of the constraints is resolved. Moreover, by including slack variables in the constraints, easy-to-check statements on proper efficiency are obtained. Thereafter, the two proposed modifications are combined to obtain the revised Pascoletti–Serafini scalarization method. Theorems are provided on the relation of (weakly, properly) efficient solutions of the multiobjective optimization problem and optimal solutions of the proposed scalarized problems. All the provided results are established with no convexity assumption. Moreover, the capability of the proposed approaches is demonstrated through numerical examples.     

A characterization of nonlinear Hölder seminorm preserving bijections

For a compact metric space (X, d) and \(\alpha \in (0,1)\), let \(\mathrm{Lip}^\alpha (X)\) be the linear space of all complex-valued functions f on X satisfying

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and \(\mathrm{lip}^\alpha (X)\) be the subspace of \(\mathrm{Lip}^\alpha (X)\) consisting of functions f with \(\lim \frac{f(x)-f(y)}{d^\alpha (x,y)} =0\) as \(d(x,y) \rightarrow 0\). In this paper, we give a characterization of a bijective map \(T:\mathrm{lip}^\alpha (X)\longrightarrow \mathrm{lip}^\alpha (Y)\), not necessarily linear, which is an isometry with respect to the Hölder seminorm \(L(\cdot )\). It is shown that there exist \(K_0>0\), a surjective map \(\Psi : Y \longrightarrow X\) with \(d^\alpha (y,z)= K_0 \, d^\alpha (\Psi (y),\Psi (z))\) for all \(y,z\in Y\), and a function \(\Lambda : \mathrm{lip}^\alpha (X) \longrightarrow {\mathbb {C}}\) (which is linear or real-linear if T is so) such that either

$$\begin{aligned} Tf(y)= T0(y)+\overline{\tau } K_0\, f(\Psi (y))+\Lambda (f)\quad (f\in \mathrm{lip}^\alpha (X), y\in Y) \end{aligned}$$

or

$$\begin{aligned} Tf(y)= T0(y)+\overline{\tau } K_0 \,\overline{f(\Psi (y))}+ \Lambda (f)\quad (f\in \mathrm{lip}^\alpha (X), y\in Y), \end{aligned}$$

where \(\tau =e^{i\theta }\) for some \(\theta \in [0,\pi )\).

     

Solitons of KdV and modified KdV in dusty plasmas with superthermal ions

For a dusty plasma with a negatively charged dust fluid with Boltzmann distributed electrons and superthermal ions, the dust acoustic solitary waves have been studied in this paper. We derived a Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation and a modified KdV equation for different cases. It was shown that the superthermal distributed ion have very important effect on the characters of dust acoustic solitary waves.     

Maps between Banach function algebras satisfying certain norm conditions

Let A and B be Banach function algebras on compact Hausdorff spaces X and Y, respectively, and let $\bar A$ and $\bar B$ be their uniform closures. Let I, I′ be arbitrary non-empty sets, α ∈ ?\{0}, ρ: I → A, τ: l′ → a and S: I → B T: l′ → B be maps such that ρ(I, τ(I′) and S(I), T(I′) are closed under multiplications and contain exp A and expB, respectively. We show that if ‖S(p)T(p′)?α‖Y=‖ρ(p)τ(p′) ? α‖ _x for all p ∈ I and p′ ∈ I′, then there exist a real algebra isomorphism S: A → B, a clopen subset K of M _B and a homeomorphism ?: M _B → M _A between the maximal ideal spaces of B and A such that for all f ∈ A, where $\hat \cdot$ denotes the Gelfand transformation. Moreover, S can be extended to a real algebra isomorphism from $\bar A$ onto $\bar B$ inducing a homeomorphism between $M_{\bar B}$ and $M_{\bar A}$ . We also show that under an additional assumption related to the peripheral range, S is complex linear, that is A and B are algebraically isomorphic. We also consider the case where α = 0 and X and Y are locally compact.     

Preparation and Characterization of Agarose-Gelatin Blend Hydrogels as a Cell Encapsulation Matrix: An In-Vitro Study

Cell encapsulation represents an alternative nonviral technique to treat multiple diseases, leading to a reduction or even absence of administration of immunosuppressants. Hydrogels have been introduced as novel materials suitable for cell encapsulation. This study involves agarose–gelatin blend hydrogels with four different weight percentage ratios (100:0, 75:25, 50:50, 25:75) of agarose to gelatin. Prepared blend hydrogels were assessed in terms of rheological behavior (gel point by using complex viscosity), cell attachment (hemocytometer), cell viability and cytotoxicity (3-(3,4-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazoliium bromide, MTT assay), and mechanical and integral stability (Bradford test and shear force rupture assay, respectively). Based on the obtained rheological experimental results, the sol-gel transition point for 50:50 was in the physiological condition range (35°C–37°C). The percent of nonattached cells on the surface of the hydrogel decreased from 92% for the 100:0 sample to 46.3% for the 50:50 sample, and the cell viability was more than 95%. A good structural integrity was achieved for samples with weight ratio of 50:50; 20.195% gelatin was released during the 24 h in phosphate buffer solution at 25°C and the mechanical stability of agarose–gelatin microcapsules under shear force were improved about 14% rather than pure agarose microcapsule.     

Interfacial activity of reactive compatibilizers in polymer blends

The influence of a reactive block copolymer compatibilizer on the breakup of polymer fibers in the quiescent conditions is investigated using the breaking thread method (BTM). The compatibilizer is either localized at the interface of two polymers or incorporated in the bulk of thread phase. Moreover, the nominal interfacial tension between two polymers is estimated as a function of compatibilizer concentration for both types of samples using Tomotika theory. It is shown that assembling of compatibilizer molecules at the interface of two immiscible polymers can result in very different dynamic of thread breakup compared to samples containing the compatibilizer in the bulk phase. We observe a reduction in the rate of thread breakup (kinetic of stabilization) when compatibilizer is incorporated in the bulk of thread phase. Such effect is more significant when compatibilizer is localized at the interface of two fluids. Additionally, the mode of thread breakup is sensitive to the compatibilizer location since a beads-on-a-string (BOAS) morphology is observed when compatibilizer is localized at the interface. In conclusion, the usual attribution of interfacial activity of compatibilizer in polymer blends may be originated from their random presence at the interface rather than thermodynamically favored diffusion to the interface.     

Tungstate supported mesoporous silica SBA‐15 with imidazolium framework as a hybrid nanocatalyst for selective oxidation of sulfides in the presence of hydrogen peroxide

In this work, a new heterogeneous catalyst (SBA‐15/Im/WO₄^2?) was prepared, and then its performance in the oxidation of organic sulfides was studied (using 30% H₂O₂ as green oxidant under neutral reaction conditions). This organic–inorganic hybrid mesoporous material was characterized by various techniques, such as FT‐IR, inductively coupled plasma, X‐ray powder diffraction, high‐resolution‐transmission electron microscopy, N₂ adsorption–desorption and thermogravimetric analysis. The catalyst was also applied to the selective oxidation of various sulfides. The hybrid catalyst was easily recovered, and was very stable and retained good activity for at least five successive runs without any additional activation. Moreover, there was no remarkable decrease in the activity and selectivity of the catalyst. The products could be easily isolated by just removing the solvent after filtering the catalyst. The yields of the catalytic productions through this catalyst were in the range from 75% to 97%.