Efficient Multi‐component Synthesis of Highly Substituted Imidazoles Utilizing P2O5/SiO2 as a Reusable Catalyst

Phosphorus pentoxide supported on silica gel (P₂O₅/SiO₂) has been used as an efficient and reusable catalyst for the one‐pot pseudo four‐component synthesis of 2,4,5‐trisubstituted imidazoles from benzil or benzoin, aldehydes, and ammonium acetate. It was also used for four‐component preparation of 1,2,4,5‐tetrasubstituted imidazoles from benzil or benzoin, aldehydes, primary amine, and ammonium acetate under thermal solvent‐free conditions. The remarkable features of this new procedure are high conversions, cleaner reaction, simple experimental and work‐up procedures and also the catalyst can be easily separated from the reaction mixture and reused several times without any loss of its activity.     

Ultra‐Trace Silver Determination in Biological and Water Samples by Electrothermal Atomic Absorption Spectrometry after Electrodeposition on a Graphite Probe

A rapid and simple procedure was developed for selective and sensitive determination of ultra‐trace silver in biological and environmental samples using the electrodeposition on a graphite probe modified with palladium followed by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry. Several experimental parameters for the electrodeposition, such as deposition potential, electrolyte concentration, pH of solution and deposition time were optimized. The calibration graph after preconcentration was linear in the range of 10‐250 ngL^?1 with correlation coefficient of 0.9989 under the optimum conditions for procedure. The limits of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ) base on (3σ) and (10σ) were 2.8 ngL^?1 and 9.4 ngL^?1 respectively. Related standard deviation (RSD) for eight replicate measurements of 100 ngL^?1 silver was 4.3%. Samples were digested completely in a closed microwave digestion system using only perchloric acid, and interference owing to various cations was also investigated. The proposed procedure was successfully applied to determine silver in blood, urine and some environmental samples with satisfactory analytical results.     

Synthesis of pseudoiridolactones

Bicyclic δ-lactones with a carbon group at the bicyclic junction C-7a, designed as pseudoiridolactones, were synthesized from α-alkyl-α-hydroxymethylcyclopentanones via an intramolecular Horner-Wadsworth-Emmons reaction.     

An empirical method for predicting detonation pressure of CHNOFCl explosives

This paper describes a new method for prediction of the Chapman-Jouguet detonation pressures of CHNOFCl explosives using the heat of detonation, Q_det, the number of moles of gaseous products of detonation per gram of explosive, α, and the average molecular weight of gaseous products, M. The equation has the form: P_CJ=15.88α(MQ_det)^1/2ρ₀²−11.17, where P_CJ is the Chapman-Jouguet detonation pressure and ρ₀ the loading density. Calculated P_CJ by this procedure show good result with respect to measured detonation pressure for any pure or mixture of ideal and some of less ideal CHNOFCl explosives at ρ₀>0.8 g/cm³.     

Stability-Indicating HPTLC Assay for Leuprolide Acetate

JPC – Journal of Planar Chromatography – Modern TLC - A new stability-indicating HPTLC assay has been established for leuprolide acetate. Silica gel 60F254 was used as stationary phase....     

Versatile vacuum chamber for in situ surface X‐ray scattering studies

A compact portable vacuum‐compatible chamber designed for surface X‐ray scattering measurements on beamline ID01 of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Grenoble, is described. The chamber is versatile and can be used for in situ investigation of various systems, such as surfaces, nanostructures, thin films etc., using a variety of X‐ray‐based techniques such as reflectivity, grazing‐incidence small‐angle scattering and diffraction. It has been conceived for the study of morphology and structure of semiconductor surfaces during ion beam erosion, but it is also used for the study of surface oxidation or thin film growth under ultra‐high‐vacuum conditions. Coherent X‐ray beam experiments are also possible. The chamber is described in detail, and examples of its use are given.     

A new model for automatic normalization of multitemporal satellite images using Artificial Neural Network and mathematical methods

Relative Radiometric Normalization is often required in remote sensing image analyses particularly in the land cover change detection process. Normalization process minimizes the radiometric differences between two images caused by inequalities in the acquisition conditions rather than changes in surface reflectance. A wide range of RRN methods have been developed to adjust linear models. This paper proposes an automated Relative Radiometric Normalization (RRN) method to adjust a non-linear model based on an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and unchanged pixels. The proposed method includes the following stages: (1) automatic detection of unchanged pixels based on a new idea that uses CVA (Change Vector Análysis) method, PCA (Principal Component Analysis) transformation and K-means clustering technique, (2) evaluation of different architectures of perceptron neural networks to find the best architecture for this specific task and (3) use of the aforementioned network for normalizing the subject image. The method has been implemented on two images taken by the TM sensor. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the presented technique in the automatic detection of unchanged pixels and minimizing imaging condition effects (i.e., atmosphere and other effective parameters).     

Effects of Thermal Radiation and Slip Mechanism on Mixed Convection Flow of Williamson Nanofluid Over an Inclined Stretching Cylinder

The current investigation highlights the mixed convection slip flow and radiative heat transport of uniformly electrically conducting Williamson nanofluid yield by an inclined circular cylinder in the presence of Brownian motion and thermophoresis parameter.A Lorentzian magnetic body force model is employed and magnetic induction effects are neglected.The governing equations are reduced to a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations with associated boundary conditions by applying scaling group transformations.The reduced nonlinear ordinary differential equations are then solved numerically by Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg fifth-order method with shooting technique.The effects of magnetic field,Prandtl number,mixed convection parameter,buoyancy ratio parameter,Brownian motion parameter,thermophoresis parameter,heat generation/absorption parameter,mass transfer parameter,radiation parameter and Schmidt number on the skin friction coefficient and local Nusselt are analyzed and discussed.It is found that the velocity of the fluid decreases with decrease in curvature parameter,whereas it increases with mixed convection parameter.Further,the local Nusselt number decreases with an increase in the radiation parameter.The numerical comparison is also presented with the existing published results and found that the present results are in excellent agreement which also confirms the validity of the present methodology.     

Calculation of Density for Mixtures of Carbon Dioxide with Nitrogen and Methane from the ISM Equation of State

In this paper the analytical equation of state (EoS) proposed by Ihm‐Song‐Mason was applied to calculate molar volume of mixtures of carbon dioxide with nitrogen and methane. The pair interaction potential has been used to evaluate the second virial coefficients and the ISM EoS parameters (i.e. α and b). The calculated values of the aforesaid quantities were applied to predict the molar volumes for mixtures of carbon dioxide with nitrogen and methane. Agreement with experiment was excellent for both mixtures.     

Modification of carbon paste with congo red supported on multi-walled carbon nanotube for voltammetric determination of uric acid in the presence of ascorbic acid

A chemically modified carbon-paste electrode (CPE) is prepared by incorporating congo red (CR) immobilized on multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT). The results show that CR is effectively immobilized on the surface of MWCNT under the ultrasonic agitation in aqueous solution and further incorporating the nafion. The prepared electrode, due to the electrostatic repulsions between the CR and ascorbate anion, is capable to mask the response of the ascorbic acid (AA) completely and provide an effective method for the detection of minor amounts of uric acid (UA) in the presence of high concentrations of AA. On the other hand, an increase in the microscopic area of the electrode by addition of MWCNT together with the electrocatalytic activity caused to a significant enhancement in the voltammetric response to UA. Optimization of the amounts of composite modifier in the matrix of CPE is performed by cyclic and differential pulse voltammetric measurements. The modified electrode shows a linear response to UA in the range of 1.0 × 10⁻⁷–1.0 × 10⁻⁴ M with a detection limit of 1.0 × 10⁻⁸ M. The electrode exhibits excellent accuracies for the determination of UA in the presence of high concentrations of AA (a recovery of 97.6%). The response of the electrode toward sulfhydryl compounds such as cysteine, penicillamine, and glutathione is not considerable. This reveals a good selectivity for the voltammetric response toward UA. The effective electrocatalytic property, ability for masking the voltammetric responses of the other biologically reducing agents, ease of preparation, and surface regeneration by simple polishing together with high reproducibility and stability of the responses make the modified electrode suitable for the selective and sensitive voltammetric detection of sub-micromolar amounts of UA in clinical and pharmaceutical preparations.