Index for vehicle acoustical comfort inside a passenger car

Sound quality is among the main factors that influence customers’ preference for choosing good automobile products. It all started more than 10 years ago and grows up so fast due to high competition in the automotive industries. A-weighted noise levels and sound power are usually utilised to measure the noise but they are not adequate to characterise the impact sound inside a car. The most popular approach to determine sound quality of a product is to define an annoyance or specific index, which involves both subjective and objective evaluations. Subjective and objective tests should be studied concurrently in order to determine the sound quality inside a passenger car. This approach is used in this paper to evaluate vehicle comfort index according to most frequently used sound quality metrics, namely; Zwicker loudness, sharpness, roughness and fluctuation strength. As a result researchers of different fields of automotive acoustics investigations can use this index according to the type of road (international road roughness) without any need to perform time-consuming jury tests. The metrics are correlated with jury test results that show which of them and how much has affected the acoustical comfort of the vehicle. The relation between road roughness and vehicle acoustical comfort index is another point of interest in this research.     

Real-Time Reconfigurable Interconnections for Parallel Optical Processing

In this letter we describe the advantages of a dynamic optical interconnection system for parallel information processing applications. The system is based on a liquid crystal television which acts as a binary phase-only spatial light modulator. We describe example algorithms where reconfigurable interconnects would be useful and present results of several interconnection topologies which have been implemented.Presented at the International Commission for Optics Topical Meeting, Kyoto, 1994.     

Role of Intracellular Iron in Switching Apoptosis to Ferroptosis to Target Therapy-Resistant Cancer Stem Cells

Iron is a crucial element required for the proper functioning of the body. For instance, hemoglobin is the vital component in the blood that delivers oxygen to various parts of the body. The heme protein present in hemoglobin comprises iron in the form of a ferrous state which regulates oxygen delivery. Excess iron in the body is stored as ferritin and would be utilized under iron-deficient conditions. Surprisingly, cancer cells as well as cancer stem cells have elevated ferritin levels suggesting that iron plays a vital role in protecting these cells. However, apart from the cytoprotective role iron also has the potential to induce cell death via ferroptosis which is a non-apoptotic cell death dependent on iron reserves. Apoptosis a caspase-dependent cell death mechanism is effective on cancer cells however little is known about its impact on cancer stem cell death. This paper focuses on the molecular characteristics of apoptosis and ferroptosis and the importance of switching to ferroptosis to target cancer stem cells death thereby preventing cancer relapse. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first review to demonstrate the importance of intracellular iron in regulating the switching of tumor cells and therapy resistant CSCs from apoptosis to ferroptosis.     

Highly effective and regioselective Michael addition of indoles to α,β-unsaturated ketones promoted by pentafluorophenylammonium triflate

A simple, inexpensive, environmentally friendly and efficient route for Michael addition of indoles to α,β-unsaturated ketones using pentafluorophenylammonium triflate (PFPAT) as a catalyst is described. Various indole derivatives were synthesized in good to excellent yields. The preparation of PFPAT catalyst from simple and readily available starting materials makes this method more affordable.     

Recent progress and current applications of Sonogashira coupling reaction in water

The use of aqueous media in palladium‐catalyzed reactions has become popular because water‐based synthetic processes are inherently safer as well as being inexpensive. Moreover, it does not require dry solvents, and the products may easily be isolated by extraction, which greatly facilitates the operation. Thus the use of water in palladium‐catalyzed reactions represents one of the most economically and environmentally viable options for many organic transformations. In this review, recent developments of Sonogashira reaction in water or aqueous media will be disclosed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

MICROWAVE ASSISTED OXIDATION OF BENZALDEHYDES UNDER SOLVENT-FREE CONDITION USING OXONE®/WET-ALUMINA

The solventless oxidation of benzaldehydes to carboxylic acids using oxone/wet-alumina under microwave irradiations is described.     

ALANINE/CHLOROCHROMIC ACID/SILICA GEL: AN EFFICIENT AND SELECTIVE REAGENT FOR THE OXIDATION OF ORGANIC FUNCTIONAL GROUPS

Alanine/chlorochromic acid/silica gel is a new and selective reagent for the efficient oxidation of sulfides, thiols, oximes, and alcohols. Oxidation of sulfides is solvent dependent. In chloroform at room temperature sulfoxides are formed as the major products, while in carbon tetrachloride or under solvent-free conditions solfones are produced in good-to-excellent yields.     

Poly(4-vinylpyridine)：As a green, efficient and commercial available basic catalyst for the synthesis of chromene derivatives

Poly(4-vinylpyridine) is reported as a green,commercial available and efficient basic recyclable catalyst for the synthesis of chromene derivatives.This catalyst can be easily recovered by simple filtration and recycled up to 5 consecutive runs without any loss of its efficiency.     

Investigation of the Electroreduction Behavior,Electroreduction Mechanism and Voltammetric Determination of Medetomidine on the Graphene Paste Electrode

This paper presents a method for the construction of a graphene paste electrode (GPE) from reduced graphene oxide (RGO). The GPE was successfully used for the determination of medetomidine. The influence of some experimental variables such as pH, supporting electrolyte, scan rate, and possible interferences were studied. Differential pulse voltammetric (DPV) peak currents of medetomidine increased linearly with its concentration in the range from 0.009 to 2.5 µM. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantitation (LOQ) values for the determination of medetomidine were 2.8 and 9.2 nM, respectively. Also, for the first time, the electroreduction behavior of medetomidine was investigated.