Ultrasound-induced membrane lipid peroxidation and cell damage of Escherichia coli in the presence of non-woven TiO2 fabrics

A non-woven titanium dioxide (TiO₂) fabric was applied to disinfection by ultrasound (US) irradiation, and the disinfection efficiency and lipid peroxidation of Escherichia coli (E. coli) cell membrane were evaluated to investigate the killing process. The addition of non-woven TiO₂ fabric enhanced hydroxyl (OH) radical generation and disinfection efficiency. Judging from the disinfection experiments using glutathione or t-butanol as a radical scavenger, the OH radical played a major role in cell killing in sonodynamic disinfection with non-woven TiO₂ fabric. Moreover, to understand the detailed killing process, damage to cell membrane was also evaluated using a diphenyl-1-pyrenylphosphine (DPPP) fluorescent probe, which detects the membrane’s lipid peroxidation. The addition of non-woven TiO₂ fabric aggravated this peroxidation. This aggravation was caused by the OH radical according to an assay using a radical scavenger. From these results, it was concluded that non-woven TiO₂ fabric as a sonocatalyst promoted peroxidation of the polyunsaturated phospholipid component of the lipid membrane initially and induced a major disorder in the E. coli cell membrane under US irradiation.     

Microwave-enhanced palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions of potassium vinyltrifluoroborates and allyl acetates: a new route to 1,4-pentadienes

[reaction: see text] A novel and straightforward microwave synthesis of 1,4-pentadienes has been developed involving the cross-coupling of potassium vinyltrifluoroborates and allyl acetates in the presence of a palladium catalyst.     

Speciation of arsenic by ion chromatography inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry using ammonium eluents

A method based on ion chromatography (IC) and inductively coupled plasma MS (ICP-MS) was developed for the speciation of arsenic in water and soil extracts. An anion-exchange column (G3154A/101) was used to separate As(III), As(V), dimethylarsinic acid (DMA), and monomethylarsonic acid (MMA) with excellent resolution. Various ammonium salts, including NH4H2PO4, (NH4)2HPO4, (NH4)2CO3, and NH4HCO3, were examined as eluents to reduce matrix interference from chloride and to solve clogging problems. The best arsenic speciation was obtained within 9 min with excellent resolution and without interference from high chloride concentrations using an eluent containing 7.5 mM (NH4)2HPO4 at pH 7.9. The detection limits for the target arsenic species ranged from 0.1 to 0.4 microg/L with direct injection of sample without matrix elimination. The proposed method was effectively demonstrated by determining arsenic species in contaminated waters and soils of Bangladesh.     

Theoretical study of dihydrogen bonds between (XH)2, X = Li, Na, BeH, and MgH, and weak hydrogen bond donors (HCN, HNC, and HCCH)

The dihydrogen-bonded (DHB) complexes formed by (XH)2, with X = Li, Na, BeH, and MgH, with one, two, and four protonic molecules (HCN, HNC, and HCCH) have been studied. These complexes have been compared to those of the XH monomers with the same hydrogen bond donor molecules. The energetic results have been rationalized based on the electrostatic potential of the isolated hydridic systems. The electron density properties have been analyzed within the AIM methodology, both at the bond critical points and the integrated values at the atomic basins. Exponential relationships between several properties calculated at the bond critical points (rho,nabla2rho, lambdai, G, and V) and variation of integrated properties (energy, charge, and volume) vs the DHB distance have been obtained.     

Structural and spectroscopic properties of trans-difluoro(1,4,8,12-tetraazacyclopentadecane)chromium(III) perchlorate hydrate

The structure of [CrF(2)([15]aneN(4))]ClO(4).H(2)O ([15]aneN(4)=1,4,8,12-tetraazacyclopentadecane) has been determined by a single-crystal X-ray diffraction study at 173 K. The complex crystallizes in the space group P1- of the triclinic system with two mononuclear formula units in a cell of dimensions a=9.6117(7) A, b=10.2882(7) A, c=11.0001(7) A and alpha=99.7570(10) degrees, beta=105.6080(10) degrees and gamma=113.7130(10) degrees. The complex cation unit has its central Cr atom in an octahedral coordination with four nitrogen atoms and two fluorine atoms in a trans position. Three six-membered and one five-membered chelate rings of the [15]aneN(4) ligand are in a chair-twist(skew)-chair-gauche conformation sequence. The gauche five-membered ring is disordered with the twist six-membered ring opposite. The four H atoms in the chiral N atoms have the trans-II (CTCg) type configuration. The mean Cr-N and Cr-F bonds are 2.095(2) and 1.8752(13) A, respectively. The IR and visible spectral properties are consistent with the result of X-ray crystallography. The resolved band maxima of the electronic d-d spectrum are fitted with secular determinant for quartet state energy of d(3) configuration in tetragonal field including configurational but neglecting spin-orbit coupling. It is confirmed that the fluoride has strong sigma- and pi-donor properties toward the chromium(III) ion and the nitrogen atoms of the [15]aneN(4) ligand also have a strong sigma-donor character.     

Intertrimer and intratrimer metallophilic and excimeric bonding in the ground and phosphorescent States of trinuclear coinage metal pyrazolates: a computational study

The interactions present in cyclic trinuclear coinage metal pyrazolates were studied computationally. Cuprophilic interaction was found to bind the singlet ground state of the dimer of trimers [[Cu(Pz)](3)](2), overcoming electrostatic repulsion. The large variation in intertrimer separations found in the literature for coinage metal pyrazolates is consistent with the relatively weak metallophilic interaction. The emissive triplet excited-state geometry of [[M(Pz)](3)](2) is predicted by density functional calculations to show major geometric distortion caused by Jahn-Teller instability and excimeric M-M bonding. Large calculated Stokes' shifts, which are also observed for experimental models, are consistent with significant excited-state distortions for these materials. The major finding derived from the present study is that the intertrimer M...M contraction in the emissive T(1) state is much more than the intratrimer contraction in all [[M(Pz)](3)](2) models, giving rise to a lower T(1) --> S(0) phosphorescence energy in these models than in analogous monomer-of-trimer models. The observations made here point to a great potential for rationally tuning the emission properties of trinuclear coinage metal complexes through choice of the metal and ligands.     

A perturbed hard-sphere equation of state extended to imidazolium-based ionic liquids

A perturbed hard-sphere equation of state (EOS) has been previously employed to predict pressure–volume–temperature properties of some ionic liquids (ILs) with phosphonium-, pyridinium-, and pyrrolidinium cations. In this work, we have extended the considered EOS to another class of ILs in compressed states. This class consists of 14 imidazolium-based ILs. The predicted densities were compared with those obtained from the experiment, over a broad pressure range from 0.1 to 200 MPa. From 1,122 data points examined for the aforementioned ILs, the total average absolute deviation was found to be 1.05%.     

Tracking noisy limit cycle oscillation with nonlinear filters

For engineering systems, the dynamic state estimates provide valuable information for the detection and prediction of failure due to noise and vibration. From this perspective, nonlinear filtering techniques are applied to the problem of state estimation of dynamical systems undergoing noisy limit cycle oscillation. Specifically, the extended Kalman filter, ensemble Kalman filter and particle filter are used to track the limit cycle oscillations of a Duffing oscillator using noisy observational data. The noisy limit cycle oscillations feature highly non-Gaussian trends. The efficiency and limitations of the extended Kalman filter, ensemble Kalman filter and particle filter in tracking limit cycle oscillations are examined with respect to the model and measurement noise and sparsity of measurement data. For the limit cycle oscillations considered here, it is demonstrated that the ensemble Kalman filter and particle filter outperform the extended Kalman filter in the presence of sparse observational data or strong measurement noise. For moderate measurement noise and frequent measurement data, the ensemble Kalman filter and particle filter perform equally well in comparison to the extended Kalman filter.     

Numerical analysis and optimization of a dual-concentric-core photonic crystal fiber for broadband dispersion compensation

In this article, a novel dual-concentric-core photonic crystal fiber (DC-PCF) for dispersion compensation is presented. The proposed DC-PCF has relatively high negative dispersion over a wide wavelength range, which covers E, S, C, L and U telecommunication wavelength bands. The validity of the proposed design is carried out by employing a 2-D finite difference frequency domain method (FDFD) with perfectly matched layers (PML). By using the numerical method, the dispersion profile of the DC-PCF is optimized in terms of three air-hole diameters to achieve desirable negative dispersion. The influence of the location of ring-core, the number of air-hole rings on dispersion and loss characteristics are also studied.     

Mitigation of phase noise in dispersion compensated quasi-linear optical transmission systems: Analysis

We theoretically investigate the phase noise in quasi-linear optical transmission systems and study the mitigation of phase noise by properly choosing periodic dispersion compensation and amplification. Variational method is used to deduce the analytical formula for calculating the phase fluctuations of a Gaussian pulse. The analytical predictions are then checked against direct simulations by numerically solving the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. We find that stronger dispersion compensation maps can be used to reduce phase noise and it can be further mitigated by modifying the dispersion map appropriately. It is also found that shorter amplifier spacing yields lower phase noise. We also explore the effect of pre-, post- and bi-end dispersion compensation configurations on phase noise with full compensation and check the reduction of phase noise along the fiber link.