A New Chromone Glycoside from Cassia siamea Lam.

Cassia siamea Lam. (CSL) is a common tree in the southern part of China. It has been used as folk medicine for aperient, antiarthritic and swellings1. We report here the isolation and structural elucidation of a new chromone glucoside, 2-methyl-5-propyl-7, 12-dihydroxy chromone-12-O-(-D-glucopyranoside (1), from the n-butanol-soluble fraction of CSL extract . 1The 80% ethanolic extract of CSL was dissolved in water and partitioned with petroleum ether, dichloromethane and n-butanol. The …     

PHOTOCATALYTIC HYDROGEN EVOLUTION FROM WATER SPLITTING UNDER VISIBLE LIGHT IRRADIATION ON NOVEL PHOTOCATALYST FULLENES-PVP-ZN_(0.999)NI(0.001)S

1. INTRODUCTION1. INTRODUCTIONOne of the most widely discussed subjects these days is the energy crisis, i.e. the oil shortage and the oil price rising, which encouraged us to research and develop new green energy-hydrogen energy in the 21st century. Therefore, hydrogen produced from water splittingwith photocatalyst has been extensively studied from the viewpoint of photo energy, such as solar energy conversion to chemical and electricity energy, and environmental concerns. To date, …     

Femtosecond ablation of ultrahard materials

Several ultrahard materials and coatings of definite interest for tribological applications were tested with respect to their response when irradiated with fs laser pulses. Results on cemented tungsten carbide and on titanium carbonitride are reported for the first time and compared with outcomes of investigations on diamond and titanium nitride. The experiments were carried out in air, in a regime of 5–8 J/cm² fluences, using the beam of a commercial Ti:sapphire laser. The changes induced in the surface morphology were analysed with a Nomarski optical microscope, and with SEM and AFM techniques. From the experimental data and from the calculated incident energy density distributions, the damage and ablation threshold values were determined. As expected, the diamond showed the highest threshold, while the cemented tungsten carbide exhibited typical values for metallic surfaces. The ablation rates determined (under the above-mentioned experimental conditions) were in the range 0.1–0.2 μm per pulse for all the materials investigated. Received: 31 August 2001 / Accepted: 3 December 2001 / Published online: 20 March 2002     

Development and validation of a hydrophilic interaction chromatography-mass spectrometry assay for taurine and methionine in matrices rich in carbohydrates

A new procedure based on hydrophilic interaction chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (ionisation process by pneumatically assisted electrospray in negative ion mode), is developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of underivatised taurine and methionine in beverages rich in carbohydrates such as energy drinks. No initial clean-up procedure and no sample derivatisation are required. Satisfactory analysis was obtained on an Astec apHera NH2 (150 mm x 4.6 mm; 5 microm) column with methanol-water (60/40) as mobile phase. The method was validated in terms of specificity, detection limits, linearity, accuracy, precision and stability, using threonine as internal standard. The potential effects of matrix and endogenous amino acid content were also examined. The limits of detection in the beverage varied from 20 microg L(-1) for taurine to 50 micro L(-1) for methionine.     

Study of a nanocomposite based on a conducting polymer: polyaniline

A simple way to obtain a conducting nanocomposite is described, and the conducting particles are characterized. Core-shell particles [polystyrene-polyaniline (PANI)] have been obtained by the dispersion process from three types of polystyrene latexes: a no-cross-linked core stabilized by a nonylphenolethoxylate (NP40) and two cross-linked cores stabilized by NP40 and a mixture NP40/Surfamid (a surfactant bearing an amide group). The surface of these particles has been extensively characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), atomic force microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. A maximum coverage of 94% was obtained for the high PANI content as revealed by XPS analysis. A better coverage was obtained for the cross-linked polystyrene latex stabilized by the Surfamid. The amide group of this surfactant allows the H-bonding formation with the PANI backbone and, thus, improves the conductivity. It was shown that a uniform coverage of the core particles was not required to ensure a good conductivity.     

Generation of non classical states of light by phase conjugation and parametric conversion

It is shown that oscillators using nearly degenerate parametric conversion or four-wave mixing in the phase conjugation geometry generate pairs of highly correlated photons. The intensity difference of the two corresponding light beams is then expected to be below the shot noise limit. This property can be used to produce intensity stabilized light beams below the quantum limit. The phases of the twin beams also exhibit interesting correlation properties which will be discussed. Moreover, the combination of the twin beams gives a squeezed state, which has been observed by other authors when the device is below the oscillation threshold. We will describe preliminary results of experiments performedabove oscillation threshold.     

Borel convergence of the variationally improved mass expansion and dynamical symmetry breaking

A modification of perturbation theory, known as the delta expansion (variationally improved perturbation), gave rigorously convergent series in some D=1 models (oscillator energy levels) with factorially divergent ordinary perturbative expansions. In a generalization of the variationally improved perturbation technique appropriate to renormalizable asymptotically free theories, we show that the large expansion orders of certain physical quantities are similarly improved, and prove the Borel convergence of the corresponding series for , with the new (arbitrary) mass perturbation parameter. We argue that non-ambiguous estimates of quantities relevant to dynamical (chiral) symmetry breaking in QCD are possible in this resummation framework. Received: 25 February 2002 / Published online: 8 May 2002