Chemical constituents from the roots of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Polygonum bistorta</Emphasis>

Investigation of the roots of Polygonum bistorta L. afforded seven compounds including five triterpenoids, a coumarin, and a steroid, the structures of which were identified by EIMS, ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, DEPT, and HMBC experiments. All the compounds have been isolated from Polygonum genus for the first time. Published in Khimiya Prirodnykh Soedinenii, No. 5, pp. 463–465, September–October, 2007.     

Exciton interactions in CdS nanocrystal aggregates in reverse micelle

Here we report the formation and spectroscopic properties of cadmium sulfide (CdS) nanocrystal systems: individual nanocrystal and CdS aggregates. The optical absorption and luminescence spectra of the aggregated CdS nanocrystals and individual nanocrystal show exciton aggregate and individual exciton characteristics. Although it is not Bose-Einstein condensation, such aggregated quantum dots (QDs) seem to supply us opportunity to study the interactions and condensation of excitons in multi-QDs system, not in the separated QDs system.     

A new algorithm for the fixed-node quantum Monte Carlo method

A novel algorithm is proposed for the fixed-node quantum Monte Carlo (FNQMC) method.In contrast to previous procedures,its "guiding function" is not optimized prior to diffusion quantum Monte Carlo (DMC) computation but synchronistically in the diffusion process The new algorithm can not only save CPU time,but also make both of the optimization and diffusion carried out according to the same sampling fashion,reaching the goal to improve each other This new optimizing procedure converges super-linearly,and thus can accelerate the particle diffusion During the diffusion process,the node of the "guiding function" changes incessantly,which is conducible to reducing the "fixed-node error" The new algorithm has been used to calculate the total energies of states X3B1 and a1A1 of CH2 as well as π-X2B1 and λ-2A1 of NH2 The singlet-triplet energy splitting (λEsT) in CH2 and π energy splitting in NH2 obtained with this present method are (45 542±1.840) and (141.644±1.589) kJ/mol,respectively The calculated     

Poly(decyl methacrylate)-based fluorescent PEBBLE swarm nanosensors for measuring dissolved oxygen in biosamples

150-250 nm Poly(decyl methacrylate)(PDMA) fluorescent ratiometric nanosensors for dissolved oxygen have been developed. Platinum octaethylporphine ketone (PtOEPK), the oxygen-sensitive dye, and octaethylporphyrin (OEP), the oxygen-insensitive dye, have been incorporated into PDMA nanoparticles to make the sensors ratiometric. Based on the corresponding Stern-Volmer plot, these nanosensors exhibit almost complete linearity over the whole range of dissolved molecular oxygen from 0 to 42.5 ppm (deoxygenated to pure oxygen-bubbled water). The overall quenching response is up to 97.5%, the best so far for all dissolved oxygen optical sensors. These PEBBLE nanosensors also show very good reversibility and stability to leaching and photobleaching, as well as very short response times and no perturbation by proteins. In human plasma they demonstrate a robust oxygen sensing capability, little affected by light scattering and autofluorescence. Potential applications include intracellular oxygen imaging and microresolved pressure profiles in biological and other heterogenous environments.     

Microemulsion-mediated solvothermal synthesis of SrCO3 nanostructures

The controlled synthesis of SrCO3 nanostructures with different morphologies, such as rodlike, whiskerlike, ellipsoidlike, and spherelike, were successfully achieved by the cationic surfactant-CTAB-microemulsion-mediated solvothermal method. Various comparison experiments showed that fundamental experimental parameters, such as the molar ratio of H2O to CTAB and the concentration of reactants, played important roles in the morphological control of SrCO3 nanostructures. A lower molar ratio of H2O to CTAB favors rodlike products, whereas a higher molar ratio generally leads to the formation of spherical products. A rational mechanism based on fusion, aggregate, and coalescence of microemulsion droplets is proposed for the selective formation of various morphologies. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), and field-emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) were used to characterize the products.     

Avoiding negative populations in explicit Poisson tau-leaping

The explicit tau-leaping procedure attempts to speed up the stochastic simulation of a chemically reacting system by approximating the number of firings of each reaction channel during a chosen time increment tau as a Poisson random variable. Since the Poisson random variable can have arbitrarily large sample values, there is always the possibility that this procedure will cause one or more reaction channels to fire so many times during tau that the population of some reactant species will be driven negative. Two recent papers have shown how that unacceptable occurrence can be avoided by replacing the Poisson random variables with binomial random variables, whose values are naturally bounded. This paper describes a modified Poisson tau-leaping procedure that also avoids negative populations, but is easier to implement than the binomial procedure. The new Poisson procedure also introduces a second control parameter, whose value essentially dials the procedure from the original Poisson tau-leaping at one extreme to the exact stochastic simulation algorithm at the other; therefore, the modified Poisson procedure will generally be more accurate than the original Poisson procedure.     

Simultaneous hydrogen and peroxide production by photocatalytic water splitting

Photocatalytic oxidation of water is a promising method to realize large-scale H₂O₂ production without a hazardous and energy-intensive process. In this study, we introduce a Pt/TiO₂(anatase) photocatalyst to construct a simple and environmentally friendly system to achieve simultaneous H₂ and H₂O₂ production. Both H₂ and H₂O₂ are high-value chemicals, and their separation is automatic. Even without the assistance of a sacrificial agent, the system can reach an efficiency of 7410 and 5096 μmol g^–1 h^–1 (first 1 h) for H₂ and H₂O₂, respectively, which is much higher than that of a commercial Pt/TiO₂(anatase) system that has a similar morphology. This exceptional activity is attributed to the more favorable two-electron oxidation of water to H₂O₂, compared with the four-electron oxidation of water to O₂.     

Substituent effects on monoboronic acid sensors for saccharides based on N-phenyl-1,8-naphthalenedicarboximides

In the course of our investigations on new monoboronic acid saccharide sensors with C(0) spacers, a series of probes 1-6 based on 1,8-naphthalenedicarboximide were synthesized. Sensor 1 displays features typical of PET monoboronic acid sensors and shows high selectivity to fructose. Sensor 2 exhibits a novel dual emission and remarkable sensitivity for glucose relative to fructose and galactose through subtle changes in pH. Sensor 3 displays significantly enhanced fluorescence in the presence of galactose at low pH. Although probes 4-6 exhibit unique properties such as high quantum yield (Phi(F) = 0.407) and excellent solubility in water, they did not show significant change in fluorescence intensity in the presence of monosaccharides. The effects of substituent on all six probes lend support to the proposed photoelectrochemical model.     

A Novel Preprocessing Algorithm for Three-Way HPLC Data

Orthogonal signal correction (OSC) was a data preprocessing algorithm. It ensured that the filtered information was irrelevant to concentration data while using it to filter the noise from the original data. This paper extended the OSC application range from two-way data to three-way data. Two drug data sets, Enoxacin, Norfloxacin, Ciprofloxacin and Betamethasone, cortisone acetate, prednisone acetate, showed that the application of the OSC algorithm to three-way HPLC data was feasible and needed further research.     

Separation of Sulfonylurea Herbicides and Determination of Bensulfuron-methyl Residues in Tapwater by HPTLC

JPC – Journal of Planar Chromatography – Modern TLC - In this work we have studied the separation of a mixture of the sulfonylurea herbicides (metsulfuron-methyl, chlorsulfuron,...