Development of Voltammetric Sensor for Determination of Tryptophan Using MWCNTs‐modified Sol‐gel Electrode

In the present work, an electrochemical sensor was developed for simple and sensitive determination of tryptophan (Trp) using multi‐walled carbon nanotubes modified sol‐gel electrode (MWCNTs/SGE). The electrocatalytic oxidation of tryptophan was investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). It was found that the oxidation peak current of Trp at the MWCNTs/SGE was greatly improved compared with that of the bare SGE. Furthermore, at the MWCNTs/SGE, the anodic peak potential of Trp is shifted about 220 mV to more negative value indicated that modified electrode has better electrocatalytic activity for electro‐oxidation of Trp. The anodic peak currents increased linearly with the concentration of tryptophan in the range of 0.2 × 10^?6 to 15 × 10^?6 M with a detection limit of 0.139 × 10^?6 M (at an S/N = 3).     

Role of droplet bridging on the stability of particle-containing immiscible polymer blends

The effect of micron-sized hydrophobic calcium carbonate particles on the stabilization of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/polyisobutylene (PIB) immiscible model blends is investigated in this study. The analytical splitting of bulk and liquid–liquid interface contributions from the droplet bridging one is successfully performed due to the negligible contribution of hydrophobic microparticles to the bulk rheology of phases. The presence of particles at the fluid–fluid interface is supported by wetting parameter calculation and verified by optical microscopy observations. Moreover, direct visualizations shows that particles are able to form clusters of droplets by simultaneously adsorbing at two fluid–fluid interfaces and glue-dispersed droplets together, probably due to the patchy interactions induced by heterogeneous distribution of particles along the interface. Rheological studies show that the flow-induced coalescence is slowed down upon addition of particles and almost suppressed with the addition of 4 wt% particles. The linear viscoelastic response is modeled to estimate interfacial tension by considering the contribution of particle-induced droplet aggregation in addition to bulk and droplet deformation ones. From linear and nonlinear viscoelastic responses, the improved stability of filled polymer blends is attributed to the interfacial rheology and/or the bridged structure of droplets, even though the interfacial area is not fully covered by particles. Furthermore, Doi–Ohta scaling relations are investigated by employing stress growth response upon step-up of shear flow.     

Natural Convection Induced by a Heated Vertical Plate Embedded in a Porous Medium with Transpiration: Local Thermal Non-equilibrium Similarity Solutions

This paper is concerned with the thermal non-equilibrium free convection boundary layer, which is induced by a vertical heated plate embedded in a saturated porous medium. The effect of suction or injection on the free convection boundary layer is also studied. The plate is assumed to have a linear temperature distribution, which yields a boundary layer of constant thickness. On assuming Darcy flow, similarity solutions are obtained for governing the steady laminar boundary layer equations. The reduced Nusselt numbers for both the solid and fluid phases are calculated for a wide range of parameters, and compared with asymptotic analyses.     

An easy purification of glycoluril clips by affinity chromatography

A convenient method for separation and purification of glycoluril clips was developed on the basis of affinity chromatography using a resorcinol-functionalized Merrifield resin. The modified resin was readily prepared via immobilization of phlroglucinol on Merrifield resin. It was used for successful isolation of the desired clip products from their corresponding reaction mixtures. Also, the resin could be repeatedly recycled and reused without any noticeable decrease in its effectiveness.     

A chattering-free robust adaptive sliding mode controller for synchronization of two different chaotic systems with unknown uncertainties and external disturbances

In this paper, a robust adaptive sliding mode controller (RASMC) is introduced to synchronize two different chaotic systems in the presence of unknown bounded uncertainties and external disturbances. The structure of the master and slave chaotic systems has no restrictive assumption. Appropriate adaptation laws are derived to tackle the uncertainties and external disturbances. Based on the adaptation laws and Lyapunov stability theory, an adaptive sliding control law is designed to ensure the occurrence of the sliding motion even when both master and slave systems are perturbed with unknown uncertainties and external disturbances. Since the conventional sliding mode controllers contain the sign function, the undesirable chattering is occurred. We propose a new simple adaptive scheme to eliminate the chattering. Finally, numerical simulations are presented to verify the usefulness and applicability of the proposed control strategy.     

Design,in silico,one-pot synthesis,and biological evaluations of novel bis-urea analogs

Research on Chemical Intermediates - The structure of urea has received special attention due to its biological activity. A new and efficient one-pot three-component reaction for the synthesis of...     

Synthesis of new polyaryl-substituted imidazoles bridged on enamine or urea moieties and evaluation of their optical and electrochemical properties

Research on Chemical Intermediates - The reaction of the free amine group in polyaryl-substituted imidazole structures with phenyl isocyanate or dimethyl acetylenedicarboxylate gave two new series...     

Finding a maximum <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>-club using the <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>-clique formulation and canonical hypercube cuts

Detecting low-diameter clusters is an important graph-based data mining technique used in social network analysis, bioinformatics and text-mining. Low pairwise distances within a cluster can facilitate fast communication or good reachability between vertices in the cluster. Formally, a subset of vertices that induce a subgraph of diameter at most k is called a k-club. For low values of the parameter k, this model offers a graph-theoretic relaxation of the clique model that formalizes the notion of a low-diameter cluster. Using a combination of graph decomposition and model decomposition techniques, we demonstrate how the fundamental optimization problem of finding a maximum size k-club can be solved optimally on large-scale benchmark instances that are available in the public domain. Our approach circumvents the use of complicated formulations of the maximum k-club problem in favor of a simple relaxation based on necessary conditions, combined with canonical hypercube cuts introduced by Balas and Jeroslow.     

Synthesis and characterization of a bifunctional nanomagnetic solid acid catalyst (Fe3O4@CeO2/SO42−) and investigation of its efficiency in the protection process of alcohols and phenols via hexamethyldisilazane under solvent‐free conditions

In this research, Fe₃O₄@CeO₂ (FC) was synthesized using the coprecipitation method and functionalized by an ammonium sulfate solution to achieve a heterogeneous solid acid Fe₃O₄@CeO₂/SO₄^2? (FCA) catalyst. The synthesized bifunctional catalyst was used in the protection process of alcohols and phenols using hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) at ambient temperature under solvent‐free conditions. Due to its excellent magnetic properties, FCA can easily be separated from the reaction mixture and reused several times without significant loss in its catalytic activity. Excellent yield and selectivity, simple separation, low cost, and high recyclability of the nanocatalyst are outstanding advantages of this procedure. The characterization was carried out using different techniques such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT‐IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy (EDX), X‐ray diffraction (XRD), and vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM).     

Improving the flow uniformity in compact parallel-flow heat exchangers manifold using porous distributors

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - The present study deals with the numerical simulation of turbulent flow in a Z-type manifold in which the fluid is distributed via nine distribution...