Effects of Frankincense Compounds on Infection,Inflammation, and Oral Health

Boswellia trees, found throughout the Middle East and parts of Africa and Asia, are the source of frankincense oil. Since antiquity, frankincense has been traded as a precious commodity, but it has also been used for the treatment of chronic disease, inflammation, oral health, and microbial infection. More recently, the bioactive components of Boswellia trees have been identified and characterized for their effects on cancer, microbial infection (especially infection by oral pathogens), and inflammation. Most studies have focused on cell lines, but more recent research has also investigated effects in animal models of disease. As natural products are considered to be safer than synthetic drugs, there is growing interest in further developing the use of substances such as frankincense oil for therapeutic treatment.     

Osteoarthritis subjects have differentiated lower extremity thermal skin response after the concurrent acute training session

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - This study investigated the thermal skin (Tsk) response of lower limbs in older adults with or without osteoarthritis before and after a concurrent...     

gem‐Difluorocarbadisaccharides: Restoring the exo‐Anomeric Effect

Molecular mimicry is an essential part of the development of drugs and molecular probes. In the chemical glycobiology field, although many glycomimetics have been developed in the past years, it has been considered that many failures in their use are related to the lack of the anomeric effects in these analogues. Additionally, the origin of the anomeric effects is still the subject of virulent scientific debates. Herein, by combining chemical synthesis, NMR methods, and theoretical calculations, we show that it is possible to restore the anomeric effect for an acetal when replacing one of the oxygen atoms by a CF₂ group. This result provides key findings in chemical sciences. On the one hand, it strongly suggests the key relevance of the stereoelectronic component of the anomeric effect. On the other hand, the CF₂ analogue adopts the natural glycoside conformation, which might provide new avenues for sugar‐based drug design.     

Mutual solubilities of hydrocarbons and water with the CPA EoS

The knowledge of hydrocarbon/water phase equilibria is important in the design and operation of equipment for petroleum transport and refining and petrochemical plants. The presence of water in a hydrocarbon mixture can affect the product quality and damage the operation equipment due to corrosion and formation of gas hydrates. Tracing the concentration of hydrocarbons in aqueous media is also important for technical purposes like preventing oil spills and for ecological concerns such as predicting the fate of these organic pollutants in the environment.     

Direct determination of glyphosate using hydrophilic interaction chromatography with coulometric detection at copper microelectrode

A simple, rapid, and low-cost coulometric method for direct detection of glyphosate using hydrophilic interaction chromatography is presented. The principle of detection is based on the enhancement of the anodic current of copper microelectrode in the presence of complexing agents, such as glyphosate, with the formation of a soluble Cu(II) complex. Under optimized conditions, the limit of detection (S/R = 3) for glyphosate was 0.1 mg L⁻¹ (0.59 μM) without any preconcentration method. The calibration curve has been found linear in all concentration range tested (from limit of detection to 34 mg L⁻¹) with an excellent correlation coefficient (0.9999). The present method was successfully applied for the determination of glyphosate in fruit juices without any kind of extraction, clean-up, or preconcentration step, with recoveries of 92 and 90% for apple and grape juice, respectively.     

Mössbauer study of spin-glass Fe x Zn1−x F2 system

⁵⁷Fe Mössbauer effect measurements in the diluted Ising antiferromagnet Fe _x Zn_1?x F₂ withx=0.25 andx=0.57 at temperatures between 4.2 and 55 K, are reported. DC suceptibility measurements show a spin-glass (SG) phase at low temperatures forx≤0.31. Our Mössbauer spectra show a phase transition to a SG state with antiferromagnetic order (AFSG) forx=0.25 and only antiferromagnetic order forx=0.57.     

Reaction mechanism and rate constants of the CH+CH4 reaction: a theoretical study

Ab initio and density functional calculations have been performed to elucidate the mechanism of CH radical insertion into methane. The results show that the reaction can be viewed to occur via two stages. On the first stage, the CH radical approaches methane without large structural changes to acquire proper positioning for the subsequent stage, where H-migration occurs from CH₄ to CH, along with a C–C bond formation. Where the first stage ends and the second begins, a tight transition state was located using the B3LYP/6-311G(d,p) and MP4(SDQ)/6-311++G(d,p) methods. Using a rigid rotor – harmonic oscillator approach within transition state theory, we show that at the MP5/6-311++G(d,p)//MP4(SDQ)/6-311++G(d,p) level the calculated rate constants are in a reasonably good agreement with experiment in a broad temperature range of 145–581 K. Even at low temperatures, the insertion reaction bottleneck is found about the location of the tight transition state, rather than at long separations between the CH and CH₄ reactants. In addition, high level CCSD(T)-F12/CBS calculations of the remainder of the C₂H₅ potential energy surface predict the CH+CH₄ reaction to proceed via the initial insertion step to the ethyl radical which then can emit a hydrogen atom to form highly exothermic C₂H₄+H products.