Simultaneous thermogravimetric and mass spectrometric analysis of the pyrolysis of municipal solid wastes and polyethylene terephthalate

A thermogravimetric (TG) and mass spectrometric (MS) study was carried out of the process of devolatilization of the organic fraction of municipal solid wastes (OFMSW) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). This involved an analysis of the heating profiles in an inert atmosphere for each of these residues separately and for a mixture made up of half of each by mass. The fit between the experimental and calculated values was checked by means of the least squares method. No interaction at all was observed between the two types of waste when the fit between the experimental and theoretical figures was checked, in the light of the low values obtained from the objective function showing fit. The study of mass spectrometry shows major emissions of energy-producing gases although fewer pollutants are emitted.     

Minimizing the number of early jobs on a proportionate flowshop

A proportionate flowshop is a special case of the classical flowshop, where the job processing times are machine-independent. We study the problem of minimizing the number of early jobs in this machine setting. This objective function has hardly been investigated on a single machine, and never on a flowshop. We introduce an efficient iterative solution algorithm. In each iteration, a single job is moved to the first position (and is added to the set of early jobs), and the remaining jobs are rescheduled such that the maximum earliness is minimized. The algorithm guarantees an optimal solution in O(n³) time, where n is the number of jobs.     

Fabrication of surfactant-free quercetin-loaded PLGA nanoparticles: evaluation of hepatoprotective efficacy by nuclear scintigraphy

Journal of Nanoparticle Research - This paper investigates the global nanotechnology and nanoscience (NN) indicators in a developmental context, during three 5-year periods from 2000 to 2014....     

Exploiting Free‐Energy Minima to Design Novel EphA2 Protein–Protein Antagonists: From Simulation to Experiment and Return

The free‐energy surface (FES) of protein–ligand binding contains information useful for drug design. Here we show how to exploit a free‐energy minimum of a protein‐ligand complex identified by metadynamics simulations to design a new EphA2 antagonist with improved inhibitory potency.     

Volumetric properties of pyridine, 2-picoline, 3-picoline,and 4-picoline at temperatures from (298.15 to 328.15) K and at pressures up to 40 MPa

The densities of pyridine, 2-picoline, 3-picoline, and 4-picoline were measured at elevated pressures (0.1 to 40) MPa at four temperatures over the range (298.15 to 328.15) K with a high-pressure apparatus. The high-pressure density data were fitted to the Tait equation and the isothermal compressibility were calculated with a novel computation procedure with the aid of this equation.     

Synthesis of enantiopure pyrrolidine-derived peptidomimetics and oligo-beta-peptides via nucleophilic ring-opening of beta-lactams

The synthesis of the two enantiomers of pyrrolidine-derived spiro beta-lactams by resolution with D- and L-Boc phenylalanine is described. The potential of these optically active spiro beta-lactams on the synthesis of peptidomimetics as analogues of melanostatin is evaluated. Theoretical studies of several models, at the Becke3LYP/6-31+G* level of theory, together with previous experimental evidences from our group, gathered by NMR, allow us to design structures that can efficiently mimic some biologically active peptide-type molecules. On the other hand, the spiro beta-lactams have shown their utility in the preparation of beta-peptides. As an example, a homo-tetra-beta-peptide was synthesized. This research will continue in the future in order to obtain higher peptides with potential biological activity.     

Lattice closures of polyhedra

Mathematical Programming - Given $$P\subset {\mathbb {R}}^n$$, a mixed-integer set $$P^I=P\cap ({\mathbb {Z}}^{t}\times {\mathbb {R}}^{n-t}$$), and a k-tuple of n-dimensional integral vectors...     

On the inapproximability of <Emphasis Type="Italic">M</Emphasis>/<Emphasis Type="Italic">G</Emphasis>/<Emphasis Type="Italic">K</Emphasis>: why two moments of job size distribution are not enough

The M/G/K queueing system is one of the oldest models for multiserver systems and has been the topic of performance papers for almost half a century. However, even now, only coarse approximations exist for its mean waiting time. All the closed-form (nonnumerical) approximations in the literature are based on (at most) the first two moments of the job size distribution. In this paper we prove that no approximation based on only the first two moments can be accurate for all job size distributions, and we provide a lower bound on the inapproximability ratio, which we refer to as “the gap.” This is the first such result in the literature to address “the gap.” The proof technique behind this result is novel as well and combines mean value analysis, sample path techniques, scheduling, regenerative arguments, and asymptotic estimates. Finally, our work provides insight into the effect of higher moments of the job size distribution on the mean waiting time.