Flow-injection spectrophotometric determination of periodate and iodate by their reaction with pyrogallol red in acidic media

A simple and efficient flow-injection method was used with good results to determine periodate and iodate in water. The method is based on the reaction of periodate or iodate with pyrogallol red in sulfuric acid media. The reaction was monitored spectrophotometrically by measuring the decrease in absorbance of pyrogallol red at 470 nm. The chemical and FIA variables were established using the univariate and simplex optimization methods. The calibration curve was linear over the concentration ranges of 0.8-73.0 and 2.0-100.0 microM for IO4- and IO3-, respectively. The detection limits were 0.7 and 1.0 microM for IO4- and IO3-, respectively. The sample throughput was 20 +/- 5 h(-1). The influence of potential interfering ions in the determination of the anions was tested. The relative standard deviations for 4.20 and 5.73 microM periodate and iodate were 1.8 and 2.2%, respectively.     

Molecular dynamics simulation on explosive boiling of thin liquid argon films on cone-shaped Al–Cu-based nanostructures

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of Al and Cu nanostructures on the explosive boiling of a thin layer of liquid argon atoms on the...     

Optimization of modified dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction coupled with high‐performance liquid chromatography for the simultaneous preconcentration and determination of nitrazepam and midazolam drugs: An experimental design

A simple, sensitive, and rapid microextraction method, namely, ultrasound‐assisted surfactant‐enhanced emulsification microextraction based on the solidification of floating organic droplet method coupled with high‐performance liquid chromatography was developed for the simultaneous preconcentration and determination of nitrazepam and midazolam. The significant parameters affecting the extraction efficiency were considered using Plackett–Burman design as a screening method. To obtain the optimum conditions with consideration of the selected significant variables, a Box–Behnken design was used. The microextraction procedure was performed using 29.1 μL of 1‐undecanol, 1.36% (w/v) of NaCl, 10.0 μL of sodium dodecyl sulfate (25.0 μg mL^?1), and 1.0 μL of Tween80 (25.0 μg mL^?1) as an emulsifier in an extraction time of 20.0 min at pH 7.88. In order to investigate the validation of the developed method, some validation parameters including the linear dynamic range, repeatability, limit of detection, and recoveries were studied under the optimum conditions. The detection limits of the method were 0.017 and 0.086 ng mL^?1 for nitrazepam and midazolam, respectively. The extraction recovery percentages for the drugs studied were above 91.0 with acceptable relative standard deviation. The proposed methodology was successfully applied for the determination of these drugs in a number of human serum samples.     

Darbo type fixed and coupled fixed point results and its application to integral equation

We propose two new notion of contraction mappings involving measure of noncompactness in the frame work of Banach space and derive some basic Darbo type fixed and coupled fixed point results. The results are correlated with the classical Banach fixed point theorems. Further we show the applicability of obtained results to the theory of integral equations following a concrete example which illustrate the application part.     

Sequential flow injection determination of iodate and periodate with spectrophotometric detection

A flow injection (FI) system is described for the sequential determination of periodate and iodate based on their reaction with iodide at pH 3.5. Two sample plugs were injected into the same carrier stream sequentially. One injection is for the iodate determination and the other for the sum of iodate and periodate determination. For iodate determination, molybdate solution buffered at pH of 3.5 was used for selective masking of periodate. The influences of reagent concentrations were studied by a univariable method and the influence of FI manifolds was studied using univariable and simplex method. Periodate and iodate can be determined in the range of 0.050-5.0 and 0.050-10 microg/ml, respectively. The 3 sigma limit of detection was 0.030 and 0.050 microg/ml for periodate and iodate, respectively. The proposed method has been applied for the sequential determinations of periodate and iodate in water samples.     

Are Pro<Superscript>8</Superscript>/Pro<Superscript>18</Superscript> really critical for functional dynamic behavior of human endostatin N-terminal peptide? A comparative molecular dynamics study

Endostatin which is derived from the non-collagenous domain 1 of collagen XVIII and is a recently identified broad spectrum anti-angiogenesis agent, inhibits 65 different tumor types. The N-terminal fragment of endostatin protein (ES) has the same antitumor, antimigration and antipermeability effects as the entire protein. In the current study, we modeled two mutant variants of ES with two mutation sites (M1-ES (Pro⁸ → Ala) and M2-ES (Pro¹⁸ → Ala)) and tried to understand proline’s effect on the peptide structure/stability by introducing P⁸A/P¹⁸A mutations, and then in order to gain functional insight into mutation caused by amino acid substitution to the peptide structure/function, these effects were predicted using computational tools. From the RMSD analyses, it can be concluded that dynamic behavior of wild-type and mutant structures was not significantly different from each other and all systems reached equilibrium. The RMSF analysis also revealed that the M2-ES has smaller overall flexibility than the WT-ES and M1-ES structures. The radius of gyration analysis then confirmed the structure of M2-ES compared to wild-type and M1 variant becomes more compact during simulation of our systems. Finally, molecular dynamics simulation analysis shows that replacement of Pro residue with Ala is able to induce a distinct β-sheet in both mutant structures. Indeed, the docking analysis shows the WT-ES and M2-ES bind to the same region of α_vβ₃ integrin, suggesting similar interaction pattern with a relatively equal binding energy into this receptor. Our results speculated that the P⁸A/P¹⁸A replacements confer no improvement (or no tangible weakness) in the peptide biological activity although is able to change structural conformation of N-terminal fragment of human endostatin protein.