One-pot efficient synthesis of disulfides from alkyl halides and alkyl tosylates using thiourea and elemental sulfur without contamination by higher polysulfides

An efficient and odorless synthesis of disulfides from alkyl halides using thiourea and elemental sulfur in the presence of sodium carbonate in wet polyethylene glycol (PEG 200) at 40 °C without contamination by higher polysulfides has been developed. This procedure was then extended to preparation of disulfides from alkyl tosylates at 70 °C.     

Uranium recovery from UCF liquid waste by nanoporous MCM-41: breakthrough capacity and elution behavior studies

Adsorption and recovery of uranium by nanoporous MCM-41 from aqueous solutions (synthetic solution and uranium conversion facility liquid waste) were investigated by use of a fixed-bed column (1.2 cm diameter and 3.0 cm height). Adsorption was carried out at flow rates 0.2 and 0.5 mL min^?1, which correspond to retention times of 10 and 6 min. The maximum breakthrough capacity for uranium ions was achieved by use of nanoporous MCM-41 at the optimum pH of 3.6 and flow rate 0.2 mL min^?1 (61.95 μg g^?1). The Thomas and Yan models were applied to the experimental data, by use of linear regression, to determine the characteristics of the column for process design. The breakthrough curves calculated from the models were in good agreement with the experimental data. The elution behavior of uranium on nanoporous MCM-41 was studied with different eluents; the results showed that 0.1 M HCl is good eluent for uranium recovery. The regenerated column could be used in a multitude of adsorption–desorption cycles.     

Oxandrastins: Antibacterial Meroterpenes from an Australian Mud Dauber Wasp Nest-Associated Fungus,Penicillium sp. CMB-MD14

The ethyl acetate extract of an ISP-2 agar cultivation of the wasp nest-associated fungus Penicillium sp. CMB-MD14 exhibited promising antibacterial activity against vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), with a bioassay guided chemical investigation yielding the new meroterpene, oxandrastin A (1), the first andrastin-like metabolite with an extra oxygenation at C-2. A culture media optimisation strategy informed a scaled-up rice cultivation that yielded 1, together with three new oxandrastins B–D (2–4), two known andrastins C (5) and F (6), and a new meroterpene of the austalide family, isoaustalide F (7). Structures of 1–7 were assigned based on detailed spectroscopic analysis and chemical interconversion. A GNPS molecular networking analysis of the rice cultivation extract detected the known austalides B (8), H (9), and H acid (10), tentatively identified based on molecular formulae and co-clustering with 7. That the anti-VRE properties of the CMB-MD14 extract were exclusively attributed to 1 (IC₅₀ 6.0 µM, MIC₉₉ 13.9 µM), highlights the importance of the 2-OAc and 3-OAc moieties to the oxandrastin anti-VRE pharmacophore.     

Kinetic Studies on the Complexation of Chromium(III) with some Amino Acids in Aqueous Acidic Medium

 The kinetics of the formation of the 1:3 complex of chromium(III) with L-glutamic acid and DL-lysine were studied spectrophotometrically at and 550 nm. The reaction was found to be first order in both reactants. Increasing the hydrogen ion concentration from 3.2×10⁻⁵ to 1.0×10⁻³ molċdm⁻³ retarded the reaction rate which is of the form . Values of 28.8 and 63.6 kJċmol⁻¹ were obtained for the energy of activation and −184 and −116 Jċ K⁻¹ċmol⁻¹ for the entropy of activation for L-glutamic acid and DL-lysine. The logarithms of the formation constants of the two complexes were found to be 5.9 and 5.1.     

An Upper Bound for the Total Restrained Domination Number of Graphs

Let G be a graph with vertex set V. A set ${D \subseteq V}$ is a total restrained dominating set of G if every vertex in V has a neighbor in D and every vertex in ${V \setminus D}$ has a neighbor in ${V \setminus D}$ . The minimum cardinality of a total restrained dominating set of G is called the total restrained domination number of G, and is denoted by γ _tr (G). In this paper, we prove that if G is a connected graph of order n ≥ 4 and minimum degree at least two, then ${\gamma_{tr}(G) \leq n-\sqrt[3]{n \over 4}}$ .     

An improved heuristic for the far from most strings problem

The Far From Most Strings Problem (FFMSP) asks for a string that is far from as many as possible of a given set of strings. All the input and the output strings are of the same length, and two strings are far if their Hamming distance is greater than or equal to a given threshold. FFMSP belongs to the class of sequence consensus problems which have applications in molecular biology, amongst others. FFMSP is NP-hard. It does not admit a constant-ratio approximation either, unless P=NP. In the last few years, heuristic and metaheuristic algorithms have been proposed for the problem, which use local search and require a heuristic, also called an evaluation function, to evaluate candidate solutions during local search. The heuristic function used, for this purpose, in these algorithms is the problem’s objective function. However, since many candidate solutions can be of the same objective value, the resulting search landscape includes many points which correspond to local maxima. In this paper, we devise a new heuristic function to evaluate candidate solutions. We then incorporate the proposed heuristic function within a Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure (GRASP), a metaheuristic originally proposed for the problem by Festa. The resulting algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art with respect to solution quality, in some cases by orders of magnitude, on both random and real data in our experiments. The results indicate that the number of local optima is considerably reduced using the proposed heuristic.     

Output feedback controller for hysteretic time-delayed MIMO nonlinear systems

In this paper, an H ^?? output feedback controller is developed for a class of time-delayed MIMO nonlinear systems, containing backlash as an input nonlinearity. Particularly, a state observer is proposed to estimate unmeasurable states. The control law can be divided into two elements: An adaptive interval type-2 fuzzy part which approximates the uncertain model. The second part is an H ^??-based controller, which attenuates the effects of external disturbances and approximation errors to a prescribed level. Furthermore, the Lyapunov theorem is used to prove stability of proposed controller and its robustness to external disturbance, hysteresis input nonlinearity, and time varying time-delay. As an example, the designed controller is applied to address the tracking problem of 2-DOF robotic manipulator. Simulation results not only verify the robust properties but also in comparison with an existing method reveal the ability of the proposed controller to exclude the effects of unknown time varying time-delays and hysteresis input nonlinearity.     

Generalization of Some Algebras in the Bosonic String Theory

We assume that the total target phase space is non-commutative. This leads to the generalization of the oscillator-algebra of the string, and the corresponding Virasoso algebra. The effects of this non-commutativity on some string states will be studied.     

Numerical simulation of a Gaussian beam profile passing through a Kerr medium

The circular Gaussian beam shape has been simulated by numerical evaluation on beam shape based on z-scan method through beam radius. This method is useful in many studies such as z-scan experiments. The validity of the relation between peak and valley separation in close aperture data and the diffraction length of the beam has been investigated by this method for some real cases. The results are in good agreement with the experimental studies.     

A colorimetric method for the determination of carboxylic acids

A new colorimetric method for the determination of carboxylic acids using bromocresol green reagent is established. The formed color follows Beer's Lambert law and is stable for 24 hr. The method is successfully applied for measuring the disappearance of volatile fatty acids in P. oxalicum culture media. The method is reproducable and is used also for the quantitative determination of carboxylic acids in Dowex 1-X8 eluates. A linear relationship between the pK₁ of different carboxylic acids and the calculated molar extinction coefficients of the color formed at 440 nm is demonstrated.