Synthesis and characterization of cyclic alkyl tetraynes

Cyclic (4a-e) and linear (10) tetraynes have been studied. Macrocycles 4a-e are unstable to isolation as neat compounds, but 4b-e have been characterized in solution. 13C NMR spectroscopy shows a consistent downfield shift of the acetylenic resonances of 4c-e as ring strain increases. UV-vis spectroscopy demonstrates that ring strain has little effect on the HOMO-LUMO gap. X-ray crystallography of tetrabromoolefin 6b confirms the monomeric constitution of the precursors.     

Ionic composition of seawaters and derived saline solutions determined by ion chromatography and its relation to other water quality parameters

Ion chromatography (IC) presents new possibilities for assessing information about environmental samples, namely waters of various compositions, ranging from high-purity water to highly saline ones. Constant proportion between major ions present in seawater, has been assumed in the past, from which the first practical equation relating chlorinity and salinity has been developed, being later substituted by a practical salinity scale, derived from conductivity measurements relative to a standard seawater, according to internationally accepted recommended procedures. Seawaters are characterized by salinity values around 35 while derived saline solutions may present considerable changes in ionic composition, conductivity, hence on salinity. Natural and anthropogenic phenomena may introduce new issues requiring clarification for which qualitative and quantitative information from additional sources is useful, e.g. ionic composition from IC. The different ranges of concentration of major and minor species present in seawater and derived saline solutions are a challenge for the optimization of a practical methodology for composition assessment in two single IC runs, one for anions and another one for cations, which has been attained in this work. Composition of saline solutions determined by IC was critically assessed in terms of anion-cation balance and further related to conductivity and salinity measurements aiming to evaluate the quality/completeness of ion chromatographic analyses performed at preselected conditions and to search for other meaningful relations for efficient recognition/distinction between saline solutions of different types.     

pH-temperature Responsive Hydrogel-Mediated Delivery of Exendin-4 Encapsulated Chitosan Nanospheres for Sustained Therapeutic Efficacy in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2D) is a chronic, obesity-related, and inflammatory disorder characterize by insulin resistance, inadequate insulin secretion, hyperglycemia, and excessive glucagon secretion. Exendin-4 (EX), a clinically established antidiabetic medication that acts as a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist, is effective in lowering glucose levels and stimulating insulin secretion while significantly reducing hunger. However, the requirement for multiple daily injections due to EX's short half-life is a significant limitation in its clinical application, leading to high treatment costs and patient inconvenience. To address this issue, an injectable hydrogel system is developed that can provide sustained EX release at the injection site, reducing the need for daily injections. In this study, the electrospray technique is examine to form EX@CS nanospheres by electrostatic interaction between cationic chitosan (CS) and negatively charged EX. These nanospheres are uniformly dispersed in a pH-temperature responsive pentablock copolymer, which forms micelles and undergoes sol-to-gel transition at physiological conditions. Following injection, the hydrogel gradually degraded, exhibiting excellent biocompatibility. The EX@CS nanospheres are subsequently released, maintaining therapeutic levels for over 72 h compared to free EX solution. The findings demonstrate that the pH-temperature responsive hydrogel system containing EX@CS nanospheres can be a promising platform for the treatment of T2D.     

H∞ optimization of fluid viscous dampers for reducing vibrations of high-speed railway bridges

This work deals with the optimization of fluid viscous damper systems (FVDs) to reduce the resonant dynamic structural response of high-speed railway bridges by algebraic and numerical approaches. The presented method chooses the objective function based on the _H∞$H_{\infty }$ norm over the frequency band of interest. This function allows taking into account structural damping properties and minimizing simultaneously the structural response associated with multiple modes. Especially, the proposed objective function may also be extended to nonlinear problems to determine optimal parameters of nonlinear fluid viscous dampers which may be an interesting solution in applications where high force levels are expected in the dampers. Finally, the proposed method is validated through numerical simulations. The simulation results show that the optimal FVD coefficients obtained by using the presented method are more exact than those by the previous method. Besides, the effectiveness of the method for solving the problems with the contribution of high modes and the consideration of nonlinear FVDs is also proved.     

Development of metrological models for internal standard single-point and multi-point calibrations for the assessment of tear gas weapons compliance with legislation

Tear gases are the most widely used non-lethal weapons, both by security forces and by the general public. The pepper spray, whose active agent is capsaicin, is the only self-defence aerosol allowed in Portugal, where capsaicin concentration must be below 5 g/100 mL. The cost-effective evaluation of the compliance of self-defence weapons with legislation involves the use of two measurement procedures with increasing quantitative capability. Samples are first assessed by preliminary measurement procedure based on single-point GC–MS calibration. Whenever the measurement uncertainty from this assessment makes evaluation inconclusive, the evaluation of sample compliance using multi-point GC–MS calibration is performed. Metrological models including sound criteria for the evaluation of sample compliance with legislation were developed for both measurement procedures. Such models include the evaluation of the impact of instrumental performance, calibration model, sample dilution and standards preparation on measurement uncertainty. The relative expanded uncertainty, in the studied range (capsaicin 3–7 g/100 mL), of measurements supported in single-point calibrations ranged from 10 to 22% and the ones supported on multi-point calibrations from 8 to 12% depending on capsaicin concentration and daily GC–MS repeatability. Measurements are fit for the intended use since they present a relative expanded uncertainty smaller than a target value of 30, or 15%, for measurements supported in single- or multi-point calibrations, respectively.     

Lewis acid promoted intramolecular (3 + 2) 'cycloadditions' of methyleneaziridines with alkene and alkyne acceptors

2-Methyleneaziridines can be tethered to a variety of alkene or alkyne acceptors through the saturated carbon of the heterocyclic ring by application of a simple lithiation/alkylation sequence (8 examples, 31-59%). Treatment of the resultant alkene bearing substrates with BF(3)·OEt(2) leads to cis-octahydrocyclopenta[c]pyrroles in which up to four contiguous stereocentres are created in a diastereocontrolled manner after reductive work-up. Using an alkyne based substrate, a 2,4,5,6-tetrahydrocyclopenta[c]pyrrole is produced by rapid tautomerisation of the initially formed bisenamine. Evidence that these (3 + 2) 'cycloadditions' proceed in a stepwise manner via a 2-aminoallyl cation is presented.     

CFD by first order PDEs

This research originally was aimed at modeling all flows (except free-molecular) by systems of hyperbolic-relaxation equations (moments of the Boltzmann equation), and developing efficient numerical methods for these. Such systems have many potential numerical advantages, mainly because there are no second or higher derivatives to be approximated. This avoids accuracy problems on adaptive unstructured grids, and the source terms, though often stiff, are only local; the compact stencils facilitate code parallelization. A single code could simulate flows up to intermediate Knudsen numbers, and be hybridized with DSMC where needed. In this project, one major problem arose that we have not yet solved: the accurate representation of shock structures. This makes the methodology currently unsuited for, e.g., re-entry flows. We have validated it for subsonic and transonic flows and are concentrating on applications to MEMS-related flows. We discuss the challenges of our approach, present numerical algorithms and results based on the 10-moment model, and report progress in our latest research topic: formulating accurate solid-boundary conditions.