Recent advances in asymmetric multicomponent reactions (AMCRs)

Asymmetric multicomponent reactions (AMCRs) include the reaction of three or more reactants simultaneously to produce chiral products that they have some advantages containing simple procedures, saving time and energy, and being environmentally friendly processes. AMCRs have seen much development and their potent synthetic approaches are discussed in this review.     

VT and VF classification using trajectory analysis

Visual classification of Ventricular Fibrillation (VF) and Ventricular Tachycardia (VT) patterns is a hard task for cardiologists. VT and VF signals are apparently similar in the time domain but their underlying information is totally different. In this paper, an image-based technique is presented which extracts discriminative information from the trajectories of VT and VF signals in the state space. In this way, first, signals are sketched in the state space by the delay time method. Then, the state space is considered as an image and trajectories of VT and VF signals are considered as two different images. The purpose is to design some masks, apply them on the images, and finally classify these masked images by a box counting method. These masks are designed to remove the common information between the two patterns and just discriminative pixels are flagged. After applying the masks, flagged pixels are counted and a threshold is determined through the cross validation phase under the receiver operator curve (ROC) criterion to classify the VT and VF trajectory images. The signals are selected from two different data sets include MIT/BIH and CCU of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. Our experiments show brilliant results which provide 100% classification rate on the training and testing phases. Even, through the cross validation phase, the results remained the same also, so thep value is determined as less than 0.0001, that experimentally shows no over-fitting is occurred.     

Sulfate-selective PVC membrane electrode based on a strontium Schiff's base complex

A strontium Schiff's base complex (SS) can be used as a suitable ionophore to prepare a sulfate-selective PVC-based membrane electrode. The use of oleic acid (OA) and hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (HTAB), as additives, and nitrobenzen (NB), dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and benzyl acetate (BA) as solvent mediators, were investigated. The best performance was observed with a membrane composition PVC: NB: SS: HTAB of 30%: 62%: 5%: 3% ratio. The resulting sensor works well over a wide concentration range (1.0 x 10(-2)-1.0 x 10(-6) M) with a Nernstian slope of -29.2 mV per decade of sulfate activity over a pH range 4.0-7.0. The limit of detection of the electrode is 5 x 10(-7) M. The proposed sensor shows excellent discriminating ability toward SO4(2-) ions with regard to many anions. It has a fast response time of about 15 s. The membrane electrode was used to the determination of zinc in zinc sulfate tablets. The sensor was also used as an indicator electrode in the potentiometric titration of SO4(2-) against barium ion.     

Solvent extraction of zinc from sulphate leaching solution of a sulphide-oxide sample using D2EHPA and Cyanex 272

Solvent extraction of zinc from sulphate leach solution obtained from the treatment of a sulphide-oxide sample, was investigated using D2EHPA and Cyanex 272 diluted in kerosene in a batch reactor. According to the results, D2EHPA exhibited the higher extraction efficiencies than Cyanex 272 at the organic/aqueous ratio of 1:1. The optimum concentration and pH for D2EHPA and Cyanex 272 were distinguished to be 0.5?mol/L and 2.5, and 0.035?mol/L and 3.5, respectively. Under these conditions, extraction efficiency was found to be ～75% for D2EHPA against 41% for Cyanex 272. The plot of log D versus log [D2EHPA] confirmed the presence of 1 mole D2EHPA in dimeric form for 1 mole Zn in the extraction system. Thermodynamic data showed that the zinc extraction process is endothermic. For D2EHPA, two-stage simulated counter-current extraction experiments were performed on the basis of the McCabe-Thiele diagram and the extraction percentage of zinc was found to be about 88%. The synergistic effect of Cyanex 272 and TBP with D2EHPA was particularly investigated. It was found that the mixture of 80% D2EHPA and 20% Cyanex 272 exhibited the best synergistic effect for Zn-extraction with a synergistic coefficient of 1.04.     

DNAzyme-embedded hyperbranched DNA dendrimers as signal amplifiers for colorimetric determination of nucleic acids

A DNAzyme-embedded hyperbranched DNA dendrimer is used as a colorimetric signal amplifier in an ultrasensitive detection scheme for nucleic acids. The hyperbranched DNA dendrimers were constructed by single-step autonomous self-assembly of three structure-free DNA monomers. A cascade of self-assembly reactions between the first and second strands leads to the formation of linear DNA concatemers containing overhang flank fragments. The third strand, which bears a peroxidase-mimicking DNAzyme domain, serves as a bridge to trigger self-assembly between the first and second strands across the side chain direction. This results in a chain branching growth of the DNAzyme-embedded DNA dendrimer. This signal amplifier was incorporated into the streptavidin-biotin detection system which comprises an adaptor oligonucleotide and a biotinylated capture probe. The resulting platform is capable of detecting a nucleic acid target with an LOD as low as 0.8 fM. Such sensitivity is comparable if not superior to most of the reported enzyme-free (and even enzyme-assisted) signal amplification strategies. The DNA dendrimer based method is expected to provide a universal platform for extraordinary signal enhancement in detecting other nucleic acid biomarkers by altering the respective sequences of adaptor and capture probe.

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Graphical abstract Schematic of an assembly of a DNAzyme-embedded hyperbranched DNA dendrimer which operates as a signal amplifier for nucleic acids detection. The nanostructure is constructed by autonomous self-assembly of three DNA monomers. Colored letters represent each domain, and complementary domains are marked by asterisk. Domain d represents the DNAzyme sequence.

     

Activity and selectivity of Ni nanoclusters in the selective hydrogenation of acetylene: A computational investigation

In this work, the Ni_n (n = 2–10) nanoclusters were investigated to design new catalysts for the selective hydrogenation of acetylene. Our results show that among the Ni_n nanoclusters, the Ni₆ nanocluster can be used as a catalyst in the reactions of hydrogenation. In the presence of the Ni₆ nanocluster, the E_a of the forward step in the reaction of conversion of vinyl to ethylene was 21.21 kJ/mol lower than that of the reverse step in the reaction of conversion of acetylene to vinyl. Also, the E_a of the forward step in the reaction of conversion of ethyl to ethane was 96.59 kJ/mol higher than that of the reverse step in the reaction of conversion of ethylene to ethyl. According to the obtained results, the Ni₆ nanocluster can selectively act in the hydrogenation of a mixture of acetylene and ethylene.     

N-Bromo Reagent Mediated Oxidation of Urazoles to Their Corresponding Triazolinediones under Mild and Heterogeneous Conditions

Various N-bromo reagents [HMTAB, DABCO-bromine, DPTBE, and TBCA] were used as effective oxidizing agents for the oxidation of urazoles and bisurazoles to their corresponding triazolinediones under mild and heterogeneous conditions at room temperature with good to excellent yields. Also the oxidation of some new 4-phenylurazole derivatives with these reagents is discussed.     

Multicomponent pervaporation process for volatile aroma compounds recovery from pomegranate juice

The present work describes the possibility of using pervaporation process to recover the pomegranate aroma compounds from an actual pomegranate juice and a model aroma solution. Four different chemicals representing four major kinds of aroma compounds, namely, 3-methyl butanal, isopentyl acetate, n-hexanol and α-ionone, were utilized in this work. Three POMS membranes and two PDMS membranes were tested for pervaporation and compared for their separation performance. The influence of various operating parameters such as feed flow rate, feed temperature and permeate pressure on the permeation flux and aroma compounds enrichment factor was investigated. Feed flow rate was shown to have no significant effect on both total flux and aroma enrichment factor, whereas feed temperature and permeate pressure had highly significant effects. An increase in feed temperature led to higher flux and enrichment factor. As permeate pressure increased, the flux and enrichment factor of some aroma compounds decreased. Some of the aroma compounds showed higher enrichment factor at higher permeate pressures. Finally, the activation energy of permeation and the membrane permeability for each aroma compound were determined.     

CO2/H2 separation by facilitated transport membranes immobilized with aqueous single and mixed amine solutions: Experimental and modeling study

An experimental and theoretical analysis to separate CO₂ using facilitated transport membranes immobilized with different aqueous single and mixed amine solutions have been performed. The membranes containing monoethanolamine (MEA), diethanolamine (DEA), monoprotonated ethylenediamine (EDAH⁺) and piperazine (PZ), as well as aqueous blends of PZ with MEA, DEA or EDAH⁺ were considered. The aqueous solution of PZ showed the highest CO₂ permeation rate with respect to other single amine solutions. Therefore blends of PZ with MEA, DEA and EDAH⁺ increased the permeance of carbon dioxide through mixed amine membranes.