Comparative in vivo constituents and pharmacokinetic study in rats after oral administration of ultrafine granular powder and traditional decoction slices of Chinese Salvia

Salvia miltiorrhiza, one of the most well‐known herbal medicines, is commonly used for the treatment of coronary heart diseases in China. Besides traditional decoction slices (TDS), another relatively new product of S. miltiorrhiza, ultrafine granular powder (UGP; D90 < 45 μm), is also increasingly being used. In this paper, a UHPLC‐LTQ‐Orbitrap MS technique was developed for a metabolite profile study after oral administration of UGP and TDS of S. miltiorrhiza. The results showed that the number of in vivo absorbed compounds from UGP was much greater than that from TDS, and different types of products from S. miltiorrhiza will have different metabolic processes in vivo. Furthermore, a UHPLC‐Q‐Trap MS/MS method for simultaneously determining four tanshinones (tanshinone IIA, dihydrotanshinone I, tanshinone I and cryptotanshinone) was established and applied to assess the pharmacokinetics of the two types of products. All of the analytes displayed significant higher area under the concentration–time curve and peak concentration after oral administration of UGP than after TDS, indicating that ultrafine powder product could improve the bioavailability and absorption of cryptotanshinon,tanshinone II A,dihydrotanshinonE I and tanshinone I in vivo. The present study provides scientific information for further exploration of the pharmacology of these two types of S. miltiorrhiza and offers a reference for clinical administration of S. miltiorrhiza.     

Co‐syndiospecific Alternating Copolymerization of Functionalized Propylenes and Styrene by Rare‐Earth Catalysts

The precise control of monomer sequence and stereochemistry in copolymerization is of much interest and importance for the synthesis of functional polymers, but studies toward this goal have met with only limited success to date. Now, the co‐syndiospecific alternating copolymerization of methoxyphenyl‐ and N,N‐dimethylaminophenyl‐functionalized propylenes with styrene by half‐sandwich rare‐earth catalysts is reported. This reaction efficiently afforded the corresponding functionalized propylene‐alt‐styrene copolymers with a perfect alternating sequence and excellent co‐syndiotacticity (rrrr >99 %), thus constituting the first example of co‐stereospecific alternating copolymerization of polar and non‐polar olefins.     

Generic applications of 13C‐detected NMR diffusion to formulated systems with suppression of thermal convection induced by proton decoupling

Fast and effective structural/compositional analysis on formulated systems represents one of the major challenges encountered in analytical science. ¹³C‐detected diffusion represents a promising tool to tackle the aforementioned challenges, particularly in industry. Toward exploring the generic applications of ¹³C‐detected diffusion, thermal convection induced by ¹H decoupling has been identified as a key factor that resulted in significantly reduced resolution in the diffusion dimension. Optimization of experimental parameters and utilization of double‐stimulated echo‐based pulse sequence both can effectively suppress the thermal convection caused by the ¹H decoupling, the success of which allows robust and generic applications of ¹³C‐detected diffusion to systems from mixtures of small molecules, polymer blends, and copolymers to actual complex formulated systems. The method is particularly powerful in differentiating small molecules from polymers, polymer blends from copolymers, and end‐group analysis. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A novel design using meshed-planar fan-electromagnetic bandgap (MP-FEBG) structure for ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna

A concept to combine the plane fan antenna with the meshed-planar electromagnetic bandgap (MP-EBG) structure is proposed; and then, based on the theory, a novel ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna with double-deck meshed-planar fan-electromagnetic bandgap (MP-FEBG) is designed. The structure of the sector is beneficial to the increase of the antenna bandwidth. The double layer structure can greatly reduce the size of the antenna, and the aperture structure can easily adjust antenna's performance. The antenna is compact in size, suitable for UWB applications. An antenna model was established on the substrate of FR4 and at least 79.1% dimension of the antenna was reduced by the traditional UWB antenna in the related documents. The simulation results show that the antenna can achieve a wide bandwidth from 3.20 to 15.78 GHz with return loss less than −10 dB and exhibit stable antenna gain. Furthermore, the measurement result is in better consistence with the simulation result.     

Preparation of 4-sulfonylcalix[6]arene modified Fe<Subscript>3</Subscript>O<Subscript>4</Subscript> as adsorbent for adsorption of U(VI) from aqueous solution

The 4-sulfonylcalix[6]arene modified Fe₃O₄ (MFS) was characterized by FT-IR, SEM, VSM, TGA, etc., which showed that its saturation magnetization was 64.99 emu g^?1 with the particle size 10–40 nm. The maximum adsorption efficiency by MFS for 2.5 mg L^?1 U(VI) solution amounted to 94.39%, which was higher than that by Fe₃O₄ (65.22%) under its optimum adsorption conditions. The adsorption of MFS and Fe₃O₄ were both followed the pseudo-second order model and the Langmuir isotherm model. The Gibbs free energy change and enthalpy change revealed that the adsorption of U(VI) by MFS was a spontaneous and endothermic process.     

A LabVIEW-based real-time measurement system for polarization detection and calibration

A rapid real-time polarization measurement system was designed and implemented in this paper. The system is centered round a computer running application developed for the purpose. The paper illustrates how to build such an excellent application with National Instruments’ graphical programming language LabVIEW, a synchronized high speed multi-channels data acquisition card and some photoelectric conversion module in detail. With simple and friendly user interface, the experimental result shows that the measurement system has high computational efficiency, high precision calibration matrix, which can be efficiently utilized in experiments relating to the measurement of polarization.     

Catalytic carbon dioxide hydrogenation to methane: A review of recent studies

Recently,various efforts have been put forward on the development of technologies for the synthesis of methane from CO₂ and H₂,since it can offer a solution for renewable H₂ storage and transportation.In parallel,this reaction is considered to be a critical step in reclaiming oxygen within a closed cycle.Over the years,extensive fundamental research works on CO₂ methanation have been investigated and reported in the literatures.In this updated review,we present a comprehensive overview of recent publications during the last 3 years.Various aspects on this reaction system are described in detail,such as thermodynamic considerations,catalyst innovations,the influence of reaction conditions,overall catalytic performance,and reaction mechanism.Finally,the future development of CO₂ methanation is discussed.