Solvent Mixture Optimization in the Extraction of Bioactive Compounds and Antioxidant Activities from Garlic (Allium sativum L.)

Garlic is a health promoter that has important bioactive compounds. The bioactive extraction is an important step in the analysis of constituents present in plant preparations. The purpose of this study is to optimize the extraction with the best proportion of solvents to obtain total phenolic compounds (TPC) and thiosulfinates (TS) from dried garlic powder, and evaluate the antioxidant activities of the optimized extracts. A statistical mixture simplex axial design was used to evaluate the effect of solvents (water, ethanol, and acetone), as well as mixtures of these solvents, after two ultrasound extraction cycles of 15 min. Results showed that solvent mixtures with a high portion of water and pure water were efficient for TPC and TS recovery through this extraction procedure. According to the regression model computed, the most significant solvent mixtures to obtain high TPC and TS recovery from dried garlic powder are, respectively, the binary mixture with 75% water and 25% acetone and pure water. These optimized extracts presented oxygen radical absorbance capacity. Pure water was better for total antioxidant capacity, and the binary mixture of water–acetone (75:25) was better for DPPH scavenging activity. These optimized extracts can be used for industrial and research applications.     

Synthesis and characterization of polyimides with ether linkages

Thermoplastic and thermoset polyimides derived from 2,2-bis[4-(4-aminophenoxy)phenyl]propane (BAPP) and 4,4′-bis(4-aminophenoxy)-2,2′-dimethylbiphenyl (BAPD) were prepared and characterized. Their physical and thermal properties as well as the polyelectrolyte effect exhibited by BTDA–BAPP polyamic acids in NMP solution were discussed. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci A: Polym Chem 37: 2559–2567, 1999     

Exotic phases of finite temperature gauge theories

We calculate the phase diagrams at high temperature of SU(N) gauge theories with massive fermions by minimizing the one-loop effective potential. Considering fermions in the adjoint (Adj) representation at various N we observe a variety of phases when N_f2 Majorana flavours and periodic boundary conditions are applied to fermions. Also the confined phase is perturbatively accessible. For N=3, we add Fundamental (F) representation fermions with antiperiodic boundary conditions to adjoint QCD to show how the Z(3)-symmetry breaks in the confined phase.     

Copper iodide-catalyzed aziridination of alkenes with sulfonamides and sulfamate esters

An efficient copper iodide-catalyzed aziridination of a variety of alkenes with sulfonamides and sulfamate esters as the nitrogen source and iodosylbenzene (PhIO) as the oxidant is reported herein. The reaction is operationally straightforward, applicable to a variety of alkenes containing electron-withdrawing, electron-donating, and sterically encumbered substrate combinations, and proceeds under mild conditions at room temperature in good to excellent yields.     

High-g Shocking Testing of the <i>Martlet</i> Wireless Sensing System

This article reports the latest development of a wireless sensing system, named Martlet, on high-g shock acceleration measurement. The Martlet sensing node design is based on a Texas Instruments Piccolo microcontroller, with clock frequency programmable up to 90 MHz. The high clock frequency of the microcontroller enables Martlet to support high-frequency data acquisition and high-speed onboard computation. In addition, the extensible design of the Martlet node conveniently allows incorporation of multiple sensor boards. In this study, a high-g accelerometer interface board is developed to allow Martlet to work with the selected microelectromechanical system (MEMS) high-g accelerometers. Besides low-pass and high-pass filters, amplification gains are also implemented on the high-g accelerometer interface board. Laboratory impact experiments are conducted to validate the performance of the Martlet wireless sensing system with the high-g accelerometer board. The results of this study show that the performance of the wireless sensing system is comparable to the cabled system.     

Three-dimensional vibration of a buckled elastica supported by spherical hinges

In this paper we study the effect of extensibility on the vibration characteristics of a spatial buckled rod (elastica) under edge thrust and supported by spherical hinges at the ends. The nonlinear equations of motion are written within the framework of director theory. The elastica in question admits only plane deformations. There are three types of vibration modes, in-plane, symmetric out-of-plane, and anti-symmetric (twisting) out-of-plane. Most of the natural frequencies decrease as the end shortening increases, except the first in-plane mode without a nodal point. This mode is inadmissible in an inextensible elastica. This may be considered a flaw in the inextensible elastica model when dynamic behavior is concerned. In the limit case when the static deformation is small, a small-deformation theory taking into account axial extensibility is formulated and compared with the elastica model. The natural frequency of the first in-plane mode derived from small-deformation theory agrees very well with the one calculated from the extensible elastica model in the post-buckling range. However, all others are found to be independent of end shortening. This obviously unreasonable result is due to the limitation of small-deformation theory.     

Copper(II) Triflate Catalyzed Amination of 1,3-Dicarbonyl Compounds

A method to prepare α,α-acyl amino acid derivatives efficiently by Cu(OTf)(2) +1,10-phenanthroline (1,10-phen)-catalyzed amination of 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds with PhI?NSO(2) Ar is described. The mechanism is thought to initially involve aziridination of the enolic form of the substrate, formed in situ through coordination to the Lewis acidic metal catalyst, by the putative copper-nitrene/imido species generated from the reaction of the metal catalyst with the iminoiodane source. Subsequent ring opening of the resultant aziridinol adduct under the Lewis acidic conditions then provided the α-aminated product. The utility of this method was exemplified by the enantioselective synthesis of a precursor of 3-styryl-2-benzoyl-L-alanine.     

Gauged galileons from branes

We show how the coupling of SO(N)$\mathit{SO}(N)$ gauge fields to galileons arises from a probe brane construction. The galileons arise from the brane bending modes of a brane probing a co-dimension N bulk, and the gauge fields arise by turning on certain off-diagonal components in the zero mode of the bulk metric. By construction, the equations of motion for both the galileons and gauge fields remain second order. Covariant gauged galileons are derived as well.     

Ultrasound promoted reaction of Rhodamine B with sodium hypochlorite using sonochemical and dental ultrasonic instruments

The sonochemical acceleration of bleaching of Rhodamine B by sodium hypochlorite has been studied using ultrasound intensities in the range 0-7 W cm(-2). Using a 20 kHz ultrasonic horn, it was shown that ultrasound could significantly shorten the treatment time and/or the concentration of hypochlorite required for the reaction. A number of intermediate species formed during the reaction have been identified. It was demonstrated that the same sonochemical reactions occur during the use of dental ultrasound instruments of the type used in endodontics where hypochlorite solutions act as disinfectants. Results showed pseudo-first order degradation kinetics for the degradation of Rhodamine B for both types of source. Both the distribution of cavitation and the resulting bleaching reactions were dependent on the design of the tips. The bleaching reaction can therefore be used to characterise the behaviour of dental instruments and aid in the optimisation of their performance.     

Microdroplet-etched highly birefringent low-loss fiber tapers

We use hydrofluoric acid microdroplets to directly etch highly birefringent biconical fiber tapers from standard single-mode fibers. The fiber tapers have micrometer-sized cross sections, which are controlled by the etching condition. The characteristic teardrop cross section leads to a high group birefringence of B(G)≈0.017 and insertion losses <0.7 dB over waist lengths of about 2.1 mm.