Vitamin C and Phenolic Antioxidants of Jua (Ziziphus joazeiro M.) Pulp: A Rich Underexplored Brazilian Source of Ellagic Acid Recovered by Aqueous Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction

Jua (juá in Portuguese) is an underexplored fruit from Brazil’s northeast. This fruit is rich in antioxidant substances. However, there is a dearth of information about jua’s bioactive potential. The present study evaluated two extraction methods (continuous agitation and ultrasound-assisted extraction—UAE) and employed three different solvents (water, ethanol, and acetone) to efficiently recover soluble phenolic compounds. Aqueous extracts obtained by UAE showed the highest total phenolic content (TPC) and antiradical activity. Besides being an eco-friendly procedure, extraction and/or solubility in an aqueous medium is also important for food application. Ellagic acids were the predominant phenolics (80%) found in aqueous jua pulp extract obtained by UAE, as determined by HPLC, while its TPC was 405.8 gallic acid equivalent per gram of fruit. This extract also exhibited a higher scavenging activity towards peroxyl radicals when compared to that of several other fruits from the literature, including grape, strawberry, cranberry, and walnuts, which are known references in terms of antioxidants. This is the first report that demonstrates jua pulp’s potential as an alternative source of ellagic acid and other phenolic acids and flavonoids. Therefore, the outcome of this study provides new information that can be useful for functional food and nutraceutical industries.     

Mechanically Interlocked Single‐Wall Carbon Nanotubes

Extensive research has been devoted to the chemical manipulation of carbon nanotubes. The attachment of molecular fragments through covalent‐bond formation produces kinetically stable products, but implies the saturation of some of the C? C double bonds of the nanotubes. Supramolecular modification maintains the structure of the SWNTs but yields labile species. Herein, we present a strategy for the synthesis of mechanically interlocked derivatives of SWNTs (MINTs). In the key rotaxane‐forming step, we employed macrocycle precursors equipped with two π‐extended tetrathiafulvalene SWNT recognition units and terminated with bisalkenes that were closed around the nanotubes through ring‐closing metathesis (RCM). The mechanically interlocked nature of the derivatives was probed by analytical, spectroscopic, and microscopic techniques, as well as by appropriate control experiments. Individual macrocycles were observed by HR STEM to circumscribe the nanotubes.     

Evaluation of tocopherol recovery through simulation of molecular distillation process

DISMOL simulator was used to determine the best possible operating conditions to guide, in future studies, experimental works. This simulator needs several physical-chemical properties and often it is very difficult to determine them because of the complexity of the involved components. Their determinations must be made through correlations and/or predictions, in order to characterize the system and calculate it. The first try is to have simulation results of a system that later can be validated with experimental data. To implement, in the simulator, the necessary parameters of complex systems is a difficult task. In this work, we aimed to determe these properties in order to evaluate the tocopherol (vitamin E) recovery using a DISMOL simulator. The raw material used was the crude deodorizer distillate of soya oil. With this procedure, it is possible to determine the best operating conditions for experimental works and to evaluated the process in the separation of new systems, analyzing the profiles obtained from these simulations for the falling film molecular distillator.     

Impact of chain architecture (branching) on the thermal and mechanical behavior of polystyrene thin films

The modulus and glass transition temperature (T_g) of ultrathin films of polystyrene (PS) with different branching architectures are examined via surface wrinkling and the discontinuity in the thermal expansion as determined from spectroscopic ellipsometry, respectively. Branching of the PS is systematically varied using multifunctional monomers to create comb, centipede, and star architectures with similar molecular masses. The bulk‐like (thick film) T_g for these polymers is 103 ± 2 °C and independent of branching and all films thinner than 40 nm exhibit reductions in T_g. There are subtle differences between the architectures with reductions in T_g for linear (25 °C), centipede (40 °C), comb (9 °C), and 4 armed star (9 °C) PS for ≈ 5 nm films. Interestingly, the room temperature modulus of the thick films is dependent upon the chain architecture with the star and comb polymers being the most compliant (≈2 GPa) whereas the centipede PS is most rigid (≈4 GPa). The comb PS exhibits no thickness dependence in moduli, whereas all other PS architectures examined show a decrease in modulus as the film thickness is decreased below ～40 nm. We hypothesize that the chain conformation leads to the apparent susceptibility of the polymer to reductions in moduli in thin films. These results provide insight into potential origins for thickness dependent properties of polymer thin films. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2012     

Multiscale Approach to the Study of the Electronic Properties of Two Thiophene Curcuminoid Molecules

We studied the electronic and conductance properties of two thiophene–curcuminoid molecules, 2‐thphCCM ( 1 ) and 3‐thphCCM ( 2 ), in which the only structural difference is the position of the sulfur atoms in the thiophene terminal groups. We used electrochemical techniques as well as UV/Vis absorption studies to obtain the values of the HOMO–LUMO band gap energies, showing that molecule 1 has lower values than 2 . Theoretical calculations show the same trend. Self‐assembled monolayers (SAMs) of these molecules were studied by using electrochemistry, showing that the interaction with gold reduces drastically the HOMO–LUMO gap in both molecules to almost the same value. Single‐molecule conductance measurements show that molecule 2 has two different conductance values, whereas molecule 1 exhibits only one. Based on theoretical calculations, we conclude that the lowest conductance value, similar in both molecules, corresponds to a van der Waals interaction between the thiophene ring and the electrodes. The one order of magnitude higher conductance value for molecule 2 corresponds to a coordinate (dative covalent) interaction between the sulfur atoms and the gold electrodes.     

Three-body hadronic structure of low-lying 1/2+ Σ and Λ resonances⋆

We discuss the dynamical generation of some low-lying 1/2⁺ Σ 's and Λ 's in two-meson one-baryon systems. These systems have been constructed by adding a pion in the S -wave to the ˉN pair and its coupled channels, where the 1/2^- Λ(1405) -resonance gets dynamically generated. We solve Faddeev equations in the coupled-channel approach to calculate the T -matrix for these systems as a function of the total energy and the invariant mass of one of the meson-baryon pairs. This squared T -matrix shows peaks at the energies very close to the masses of the strangeness -1 , 1/2⁺ resonances listed in the particle data book.     

Multilinear Calderón-Zygmund Theory

A systematic treatment of multilinear Calderón-Zygmund operators is presented. The theory developed includes strong type and endpoint weak type estimates, interpolation, a multilinear T1 theorem, and a variety of results regarding multilinear multiplier operators.     

Experiments to detect long-range heteronuclear shift correlations: LR-J-HSMQC

The utility of the J-HSMQC experiment to detect long-range CH correlations was investigated. Two new long-range J-compensated pulse sequences, LR-J-HSMQC(80,27) and LR-J-HSMQC(27,80), were developed using the (3beta(x))beta(y) composite 90 degrees pulse sequence. These two experiments were shown to be effective for long-range coupling constants, (n)J(CH), that were greater than 3 Hz. Although the overall sensitivities of the long-range J-HSMQC experiments were slightly lower than that of the conventional decoupled HMBC experiment, their 2D maps showed additional cross peaks that could be useful in structure elucidation. LR-J-HSMQC(27,80) was very efficient in yielding two- and four-bond relay correlations. The utility of the new sequences is demonstrated with strychnine as the sample.     

Neural Networks in Which Synaptic Patterns Fluctuate with Time

We study a stochastic neural-network model in which neurons and synapses change with a priori probability p and 1–p, respectively, in the limit p0. This implies neuron activity competing with fast fluctuations of the synaptic connections—in fact, random oscillations around values given by a learning (for example, Hebb's) rule. The consequences for the system performance of a dynamics constantly checking at random the set of memorized patterns is thus studied both analytically and numerically. We describe various nonequilibrium phase transitions whose nature depends on the properties of fluctuations. We find, in particular, that under rather general conditions locally stable mixture states do not occur, and pattern recognition and retrieval processes are substantially improved for some classes of synaptic fluctuations.     

Observation of a nonlinear mode in a cylindrical Fabry-Perot cavity

We report what is believed to be the first observation of a nonlinear mode in a cylindrical nonlinear Fabry-Perot cavity. The field enhancement from cavity buildup, as well as the large chi((3)) optical nonlinearity that is due to resonantly excited (85)Rb vapor, allows the nonlinear mode to form at low incident optical powers of less than 1 mW. The mode is observed to occur for both self-focusing and self-defocusing nonlinearity.