New indices for analysing partial ranking diagrams

Interest is growing in decision making strategies and several techniques are now available. The assessment of priorities is a typical premise before final decisions are taken. Total and partial order ranking (POR) strategies, which from a mathematical point of view are based on elementary methods of discrete mathematics, appear as an attractive and simple tool to asses priorities. Despite the well-known total ranking strategies, which are scalar methods combining the different criteria values into a global index which always ranks elements in an ordered sequence, the partial order ranking is a vectorial approach which recognises that not all the elements can be directly compared with all the others. In fact when many criteria are considered, contradictions in the ranking are bound to exist and the higher the number of criteria, the higher the probability that contradictions in the ranking occur. The Hasse diagram technique (HDT) is a very useful tool to perform partial order ranking. The results of the partial order ranking are visualised in a diagram, called Hasse diagram. Incomparable elements are located at the same geometrical height and as high as possible in the diagram, thus incomparable elements are arranged in levels. The quality of a ranking procedure has to be evaluated by a deep analysis and by several indices, i.e. scalar functions that describe features of an ordered set and allow comparison among different rankings. For this purpose, new indices for ranking analysis are proposed here, compared with the ones found in literature and tested on theoretical examples and on real data.     

Iron(III) complexes of a tetradentate tripodal ligand N,N′,N″-tris (2-benzimidazolyl-methyl)amine

Summary Fe^III complexes of a tetradentate ligand with pendant benzimidazolyl groups have been synthesized and characterized. Room temperature Mössbauer spectra depict a quadruple split doublet in the case of NO _inf3 ^p– as co-ligand, while a nearly symmetrical one line spectrum is obtained for complexes with Cl^–as co-ligand. The isomer shift values are towards the lower end of the range found for other high spin Fe^III complexes. ¹H-n.m.r. spectra of the complexes reveal relatively broad linewidths with large isotropic shifts. Paramagnetically shifted resonances are observed in the range of –10.0–+70.0 p.p.m.Author to whom all correspondence should be directed.     

Direct asymmetric Michael addition of ketones to chalcones catalyzed by a hydroxyphthalimide derived triazole–pyrrolidine

An efficient protocol for the enantioselective Michael additions of ketones to chalcones catalyzed by a hydroxyphthalimide linked triazole–pyrrolidine derivative has been developed. The corresponding products, 1,5-dicarbonyl compounds, were obtained in good yields with high levels of stereoselectivities under mild reaction conditions employing benzoic acid as an additive.     

High‐efficiency polymer solar cells based on phenylenevinylene copolymer with BF2‐azopyrrole complex and CN‐PC70BM with solvent additive

Power conversion efficiency (PCE) of phenylenevinylene‐based copolymer with BF₂ azopyrrole complex (PB)/modified PC₇₀BM, that is, CN‐PC₇₀BM bulk heterojunction solar cells improves from 2.16 to 4.90% using a processing additive and drying condition. The results demonstrate that a processing additive and drying condition provides an effective means to control both the surface roughness and finer interpenetrating networks to enhance the exciton dissociation into free charge carriers, charge transportation, and collection. Taking into the account of simple device fabrication process without thermal annealing, the PCE of the polymer solar cell can further improved by chloronapthalene (CN) additive under the fast drying condition. The average carrier lifetimes extracted from the impedance spectra and found to correlate with measured PCEs. At short circuit conditions and illumination, the average charge carrier lifetime was found vary from 16.8 to 32 μs with power conversion efficiencies ranging from 3.0 to 4.9%. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2012     

Evaluation of SARs for the prediction of skin irritation/corrosion potential–structural inclusion rules in the BfR decision support system†

The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) has developed a Decision Support System (DSS) to assess certain hazardous properties of pure chemicals, including skin and eye irritation/corrosion. The BfR–DSS is a rule-based system that could be used for the regulatory classification of chemicals in the European Union. The system is based on the combined use of two predictive approaches: exclusion rules based on physicochemical cut-off values to identify chemicals that do not exhibit a certain hazard (e.g., skin irritation/corrosion), and inclusion rules based on structural alerts to identify chemicals that do show a particular toxic potential. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the structural inclusion rules implemented in the BfR–DSS for the prediction of skin irritation and corrosion. The following assessments were performed: (a) a confirmation of the structural rules by rederiving them from the original training set (1358 substances), and (b) an external validation by using a test set of 200 chemicals not used in the derivation of the rules. It was found as a result that the test data set did not match the training set relative to the inclusion of structural alerts associated with skin irritation/corrosion, albeit some skin irritants were in the test set.     

Characterization of crystalline and amorphous content in pharmaceutical solids by dielectric thermal analysis

Morphological and thermodynamic transitions in drugs as well as their amorphous and crystalline content in the solid state have been distinguished by thermal analytical techniques, which include dielectric analysis (DEA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and macro-photomicrography. These techniques were used successfully to establish a structure versus property relationship with the United States Pharmacopeia standard set of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) drugs. A distinguishing method is the DSC determination of the amorphous and crystalline content which is based on the fusion properties of the specific drug and its recrystallization. The DSC technique to determine the crystalline and amorphous content is based on a series of heat and cool cycles to evaluate the drugs ability to recrystallize. To enhance the amorphous portion, the API is heated above its melting temperature and cooled with liquid nitrogen to ?120 °C (153 K). Alternatively a sample is program heated and cooled by DSC at a rate of 10 °C min^?1. DEA measures the crystalline solid and amorphous liquid API electrical ionic conductivity. The DEA ionic conductivity is repeatable and differentiates the solid crystalline drug with a low conductivity level (10^?2 pS cm^?1) and a high conductivity level associated with the amorphous liquid (10⁶ pS cm^?1). The DSC sets the analytical transition temperature range from melting to recrystallization. However, analysis of the DEA ionic conductivity cycle establishes the quantitative amorphous and crystalline content in the solid state at frequencies of 0.10–1.00 Hz and to greater than 30 °C below the melting transition as the peak melting temperature. This describes the “activation energy method.” An Arrhenius plot, log ionic conductivity versus reciprocal temperature (K^?1), of the pre-melt DEA transition yields frequency dependent activation energy (E _a, J mol^?1) for the complex charging in the solid state. The amorphous content is inversely proportional to the E _a where the E _a for the crystalline form is higher and lower for the amorphous form with a standard deviation of ±2%. There was a good agreement between the DSC crystalline melting, recrystallization, and the solid state DEA conductivity method with relevant microscopic evaluation. An alternate technique to determine amorphous and crystalline content has been established for the drugs of interest based on an obvious amorphous and crystalline state identified by macro-photomicrography and compared to the conductivity variations. This second “empirical method” correlates well with the “activation energy” method.     

Human cytokines characterized by dielectric thermal analysis, thermogravimetry, and differential scanning calorimetry

Malaria affects over 500 million people worldwide leading to 1–2 million deaths each year, the majority of whom are children. Four Plasmodium species cause malaria in humans. To properly diagnose, and correctly treat malarial infections, accurate diagnosis of infection is required. Proper diagnosis of infection will result in a reduction of morbidity, mortality, and of drug resistant parasites. However, the current tests for malaria diagnosis do not efficiently identify the appropriate human and parasite biomarkers associated with disease. Detection of specific inflammatory mediators such as cytokines associated with malaria pathogenesis will aid the determination of disease progression, disease prognosis, and the early diagnosis of malaria infection. In this study, we used dielectric thermal analysis (DETA), thermogravimetric analysis, and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to characterize five human cytokines (IL-1α, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, and IL-10), to demonstrate how their thermoanalytical properties can be investigated for sensor design. Analysis for DETA was performed at a frequency range of 0.1–300,000 Hz. Permittivity and loss factor measurements were used to calculate tan δ values. Peak frequencies were used to determine dielectric signatures for each cytokine. The peak frequencies were different for each cytokine analyzed. In addition, activation energies were frequency dependent for IL-2 but frequency independent for the remaining four cytokines. Cytokines were also examined using DSC which established variance in heat of crystallization and heat of fusion of solvent among the five cytokines. A noticeable differentiation was observed with IL-1α among the other four cytokines when analyzed using trend analysis. Detection of unique dielectric signals will aid development of sensitive dielectric sensors capable of detecting cytokines in various human samples.