Synthesis of boronic acid‐functionalized poly(glycerol‐oligoγ‐butyrolactone): Nano‐networks for efficient electrochemical sensing of biosystems

Despite the outstanding properties of hyperbranched polyglycerols such as biocompatibility and multifunctionality, enough attention has not been paid to the synthesis of their functional copolymers. This problem has limited the structural diversity of hyperbranched polyglycerols and hampers further developments and their practical usage. In this work, butyrolactone segments were incorporated into the backbone of polyglycerols by one‐pot ring‐opening copolymerization of a mixture of glycidol and γ‐butyrolactone in the presence of tin(II) 2‐ethylhexanoate. Poly(glycerol‐oligoγ‐butyrolactone)s were then crosslinked by 2,5‐thiophenediylbisboronic acid to obtain polymeric nanonetworks with 140 nm average size. Afterwards, the gold electrode was modified by the polymeric nano‐networks, and it was used for the determination of glucose, glycated hemoglobin, and Escherichia coli in phosphate buffer solution (pH = 9.0) through cyclic voltammetry and impedance spectroscopic. Taking advantage of the straightforward synthesis, cheap precursors and multifunctionality of poly(glycerol‐oligoγ‐butyrolactone)s, they could be used for real‐time sensing of a wide range of biosystems. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2019, 57, 1430–1439     

Phyto-synthesis of silver nanoparticles using aerial extract of Salvia leriifolia Benth and evaluation of their antibacterial and photo-catalytic properties

Research on Chemical Intermediates - We have synthesized silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) via a simple and eco-friendly method through the utilization of aqueous aerial parts of Salvia leriifolia...     

Generalized framework for robust design of tuned mass damper systems

The primary purpose of this contribution is to develop a novel framework for generalized robust design of tuned mass damper (TMD) systems as passive vibration controllers for uncertain structures. This versatile strategy is intended to be free of any restriction on the structure-TMD system configuration, the performance criterion, and the number of uncertain parameters. The main idea pursued is to adopt methods and concepts from the robust control literature, including: (1) the linear fractional transformation (LFT) formulation pertaining to the structured singular value (μ) framework; (2) the concept of weighted multi-input multi-output (MIMO) norms for characterizing performance; and (3) a worst-case performance assessment method to avoid the unacceptable computation burden involved with exhaustive search or Monte Carlo methods in the presence of multiple uncertainties. Based on these, the robust design framework is organized into four steps: (1) modeling and casting the overall dynamics into the proposed LFT framework that isolates the TMD system as the controller, and the uncertainties as a structured perturbation to the nominal dynamics; (2) setting up the optimization problem based on generalized indices of nominal performance, robustness, and worst-case performance; (3) implementing a genetic algorithm (GA) for solution of the optimization problem; and (4) post-processing the results for systematic visualization, validation, and selection of preferred designs. This strategy has been implemented on several illustrative design examples involving a seismically excited multi-story building with different combinations of assumptions on the uncertainty, TMD configuration, excitation scenarios, and performance criteria. The resulting solution sets have been studied through various post-processing methods, including visualization of Pareto fronts, uncertain frequency response plots, time-domain simulations, and random vibration analysis.     

Study on the Interaction of the CpG Alternating DNA with CdTe Quantum Dots

A novel sensitive method for detection of DNA methylation was developed with thioglycollic acid (TGA)-capped CdTe quantum dots (QDs) as fluorescence probes. Recognition of methylated DNA sites would be useful strategy due to the important roles of methylation in disease occurrence and developmental processes. DNA methylation occurs most often at cytosine-guanine sites (CpG dinucleotides) of gene promoters. The QDs significantly interacted with hybridized unmethylated and methylated DNA. The interaction of CpG rich methylated and unmethylated DNA hybrid with quantum dots as an optical probe has been investigated by fluorescence spectroscopy and electrophoresis assay. The fluorescence intensity of QDs was highly dependent to unmethylated and methylated DNA. Specific site of CpG islands of Adenomatous polyposis coli (APC), a well-studied tumor suppressor gene, was used as the detection target. Under optimum conditions, upon the addition of unmethylated dsDNA, the fluorescence intensity increased in linear range from 1.0?×?10^??10 to 1.0?×?10^??6M with detection limit of 6.2?×?10^??11 M and on the other hand, the intensity of QDs showed no changes with addition of methylated dsDNA. We also demonstrated that the unmethylated and methylated DNA and QDs complexes showed different mobility in electrophoresis assay. This easy and reliable method could distinguish between methylated and unmethylated DNA sequences.     

Ammonia adsorption on the C30B15N15 heterofullerene: DFT study of nuclear magnetic shielding and electric field gradient tensors of N and B nuclei

Ammonia adsorption on the external surface of C₃₀B₁₅N₁₅ heterofullerene was studied using density functional calculations. Three models of the ammonia-attached C₃₀B₁₅N₁₅ together with the perfect model were optimized at the B3LYP/6-31G^? level. The optimization process reveals that dramatic influences occurred for the geometrical structure of C₃₀B₁₅N₁₅ after ammonia adsorption; the B atom relaxes outwardly and consequently the heterofullerene distorts from the spherical form in the adsorption sites. The chemical shielding (CS) tensors and nuclear quadrupole coupling constants of B and N nuclei were calculated at the B3LYP/6-311G^** level. Our calculations reveal that the B atom is chemically bonded to NH₃ molecule. The B atom in the NH₃-attached form has the largest chemical shielding isotropic (CSI) value among the other boron nuclei. The C_Q parameters of B nuclei at the interaction sites are significantly decreased after ammonia adsorption.     

Reaction between triphenylphosphine and aromatic amines in the presence of diethyl azodicarboxylate: an efficient synthesis of aryliminophosphoranes under neutral and mild conditions

An efficient synthesis of aryliminophosphoranes is described. A mixture of an aromatic amine, diethyl azodicarboxylate and triphenylphosphine undergo a Mitsonobu type reaction at ambient temperature in dry dichloromethane to afford aryliminophosphoranes in excellent yields.     

Integrated photonic crystal spectrometers for sensing applications

A combination of negative refraction and diffraction compensation in a superprism-based photonic crystal structure is used to demonstrate a compact on-chip photonic crystal spectrometer. This structure provides strong dispersion and signal isolation, which are essential for forming an efficient and compact spectrometer. Performance of these spectrometers as spectral pattern detectors is discussed. The experimental results show that a PC structure with 80 μm × 220 μm dimension can locate a single spectral feature with better than 10 pm accuracy over a bandwidth of 50 nm around 1550 nm center wavelength at an output signal-to-noise ratio of 13 dB.     

Conceptual linearization of Euler governing equations to solve high speed compressible flow using a pressure‐based method

The main objective of the current work is to introduce a new conceptual linearization strategy to improve the performance of a primitive shock‐capturing pressure‐based finite‐volume method. To avoid a spurious oscillatory solution in the chosen collocated grids, both the primitive and extended methods utilize two convecting and convected momentum expressions at each cell face. The expressions are obtained via a physical‐based discretization of two inclusive statements, which are constructed via a novel incorporation of the continuity and momentum governing equations. These two expressions in turn provide a strong coupling among the Euler conservative statements. Contrary to the primitive work, the linearization in the current work respects the definitions and essence of physics behind deriving the Euler governing equations. The accuracy and efficiency of the new formulation are then investigated by solving the shock tube as a problem with moving normal and expansion waves and the converging‐diverging nozzle as a problem with strong stationary normal shock. The results show that there is good improvement in performance of the primitive pressure‐based shock‐capturing method while its superior accuracy is not deteriorated at all. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2008     

On hydraulic permeability of random packs of monodisperse spheres: Direct flow simulations versus correlations

Hydraulic permeability is studied in porous media consisting of randomly distributed monodisperse spheres by means of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The packing of spheres is generated by inserting a certain number of nonoverlapping spherical particles inside a cubic box at both low and high packing fractions using proper algorithms. Fluid flow simulations are performed within the interparticulate porous space by solving Navier-Stokes equations in a low-Reynolds laminar flow regime. The hydraulic permeability is calculated from the Darcy equation once the mean values of velocity and pressure gradient are calculated across the particle packing. The simulation results for the pressure drop across the packing are verified by the Ergun equation for the lower range of porosities (<0.75), and the Stokes equation for higher porosities (∼1). Using the results of simulations, the effects of porosity and particle diameters on the hydraulic permeability are investigated. Simulations precisely specified the range of applicability of empirical or semi-empirical correlations for hydraulic permeability, namely the Carman-Kozeny, Rumpf-Gupte, and Howells-Hinch formulas. The number of spheres in the model is gradually decreased from 2000 to 20 to discover the finite-size effect of pores on the hydraulic permeability of spherical packing, which has not been clearly addressed in the literature. In addition, the scale dependence of hydraulic permeability is studied via simulations of the packing of spheres shrunk to lower scales. The results of this work not only reveal the validity range of the aforementioned correlations, but also show the finite-size effect of pores and the scale-independence of direct CFD simulations for hydraulic permeability.     

One-pot synthesis of 1,2,3-triazole linked dihydropyrimidinones via Huisgen 1,3-dipolar/Biginelli cycloaddition

The combination of the Biginelli reaction with click chemistry has been used for the one-pot synthesis of 1,2,3-triazole linked dihydropyrimidinones from azides, aromatic aldehydes containing a propargyl ether group, urea, and 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds using Cu(OAc)₂/sodium ascorbate as catalyst in acetic acid under mild reaction conditions.