Synthesis,characterization and antibacterial activity of some new thiazole and thiazolidinone derivatives containing phenyl benzoate moiety

4-Formylphenyl benzoate was utilized as a versatile precursor for the construction of new series of heterocyclic scaffolds that contain thiazole and thiazolidin-5-one rings. The antibacterial activity of these scaffolds against two types of bacteria was screened and most of them exhibited good activity. Among the synthesized thiazole derivatives, compounds 5, 6, and 8a showed antibacterial activity close to the standard chemotherapeutic (Ampicillin).     

Headspace solid-phase microextraction of menthol using a sol–gel titania-based coating along with multiwalled carbon nanotubes on the surface of stainless steel fiber

Sol–gel coating technology for the preparation of solid-phase microextraction fibers involves a single-step procedure and allows for in situ creation of chemically bonded coatings which are characterized by high thermal and solvent stabilities. A novel titania sol–gel coating was prepared for the first time on a stainless steel fiber and applied for the headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) of menthol with gas chromatography and flame ionization detection. Important parameters influencing the efficiency of SPME process, such as extraction time, extraction temperature and ionic strength, were optimized by central composite design. An extraction time of 40 min at 60 °C gave maximum extraction efficiency, when NaCl (10% w/v) was added to the aqueous sample. The analytical characteristics of the proposed method were comparable with other reported fibers. Under optimized conditions, the linearity was between 0.05 and 100 µg mL^??1. The relative standard deviations (RSDs) determined at 0.5 µg mL^??1 concentration level (n?=?5) were as follows: intra-day RSD 7.26%; inter-day RSD 10.87%; fiber-to-fiber RSD 9.05%. The relative recoveries determined after spiking a mint distillate sample at three concentration levels from 0.067 to 50.0 µg mL^??1 varied from 86 to 102%. The proposed method was successfully applied for the analysis of menthol in peppermint samples.     

Augmented Lagrangian method for second-order cone programs under second-order sufficiency

This paper addresses problems of second-order cone programming important in optimization theory and applications. The main attention is paid to the augmented Lagrangian method (ALM) for such problems considered in both exact and inexact forms. Using generalized differential tools of second-order variational analysis, we formulate the corresponding version of second-order sufficiency and use it to establish, among other results, the uniform second-order growth condition for the augmented Lagrangian. The latter allows us to justify the solvability of subproblems in the ALM and to prove the linear primal–dual convergence of this method.

     

Atom transfer radical polymerization of (meth)acrylates and their novel block copolymers with vinyl acetate

Homopolymerization of methyl acrylate (MA) and methyl methacrylate (MMA) by atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) were carried out at 90 °C using methyl-2-bromopropionate (MBP) as initiator, copper halide (CuX, X=Cl, Br) as catalyst, 2,2^′-bipyridine (bpy) or N,N,N^′,N^′,N^″-pentamethyldiethylenetriamine (PMDETA) as ligand in 1-butanol (less polar and containing OH) and acetonitrile (more polar) solvents. It was found that with CuCl/bpy catalyst ATRP of MA and MMA in 1-butanol proceeded faster than that in acetonitrile. The rate of ATRP of MA and MMA in acetonitrile and 1-butanol was comparable when CuCl/PMDETA used as catalyst system. The number-average molecular weights increased with conversion and polydispersities were low . The ATRP of MA and MMA with vinyl acetate telomer having trichloromethyl end group (PVAc-CCl₃) were also used to synthesize new block copolymers. The structures and molecular weight of synthesized PVAc-b-PMA and PVAc-b-PMMA were characterized by ¹H NMR, FTIR spectroscopy and gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and shown that the block copolymers were novel.     

Silica Sulfuric Acid as an Inexpensive and Recyclable Solid Acid Catalyzed Efficient Synthesis of Quinolines

Summary. Silica sulfuric acid as an inexpensive and recyclable solid acid efficiently catalyzes the Fridedl?nder synthesis of quinolines through a condensation reaction of a 2-aminoaryl ketone with an activated α-CH acid compound under solvent-free conditions in high yields at 100°C.     

An isocyanide-based three-component reaction: synthesis of fully substituted N-alkyl-2-triphenylphosphoranylidene glutarimides

A three-component condensation reaction between an isocyanide, an electron-deficient acetylenic ester and (ethoxycarbonylmethyl)triphenylphosphonium bromide efficiently provides fully substituted N-alkyl-2-triphenylphosphoranylidene glutarimides in a one-pot reaction without any activation or modification.     

Spectrofluorimetric Determination of Cu2＋ Using New Fluorogenic Reagent

A new synthesized fluorogenic reagent,8-[(2-pyridine)methylideneamino] quinoline (PMAQ), was utilized for spectrofluorimetric determination of Cu(II) at trace levels. PMAQ, a good fluorogenic reagent, though insoluble in water, but is soluble in ethanol and 20% ethanol-water. The excitation and the fluorescence wavelengths of PMAQ were 310 and 434 nm respectively. When the reagent was complexed with Cu(II), the fluorescence intensity decreased proportionally with the concentration of Cu(II) at pH 4.5 by a static quenching effect. The highest sensitivity to Cu^2＋ determination was shown to be at PMAQ concentration of 1.0×10^－5mol•L^－1. In order to enhance the quenching effect, the Cu(II)-PMAQ complex solution was kept at 22 ℃ for 20 min. Though the interferences by Co(II) and Fe(III) were very serious, they were however, completely eliminated by being masked with oxalate and ascorbate ions respectively. The linear dynamic range for Cu(II) determination was between 25—441 µg•L^－1 with the detection limit of 18 µg•L^－1 (RSD＝3.7%, n＝6). The proposed method was successfully applied to the determination of Cu(II) in real samples including human blood serum, commercial tea and wheat flour.     

A hybrid metaheuritic technique developed for hourly load forecasting

Electricity load forecasting has become one of the most functioning tools in energy efficiency and load management and utility companies which has been made very complex due to deregulation. Due to the importance of providing a secure and economic electricty for the consumers, having a reliable and robust enough forecast engine in short‐term load management is very needful. Fuzzy inference system is one of primal branches of Artificial Intelligence techniques which has been widely used for different applications of decision making in complex systems. This paper aims to develop a Fuzzy inference system as a main forecast engine for Short term Load Forecasting (STLF) of a city in Iran. However, the optimization of this platform for this special case remains a basic problem. Hence, to address this issue, the Radial Movement Optimization (RMO) technique is proposed to optimize the whole Fuzzy platform. To support this idea, the accuracy of the proposed model is analyzed using MAPE index and an average error of 1.38% is obtained for the forecast load demand which represents the reliability of the proposed method. Finally, results achieved by this method, demonstrate that an adaptive two‐stage hybrid system consisting of Fuzzy & RMO can be an accurate and robust enough choice for STLF problems. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Complexity 21: 521–532, 2016     

A metal-organic framework nanocomposite made from functionalized magnetite nanoparticles and HKUST-1 (MOF-199) for preconcentration of Cd(II), Pb(II), and Ni(II)

The author describes the preparation of a magnetic metal organic framework of type MOF-199 containing magnetite (Fe₃O₄) nanoparticles carrying covalently immobilized 4-(thiazolylazo) resorcinol (Fe₃O₄@TAR). This material is shown to represent a viable sorbent for separation and preconcentration of Cd(II), Pb(II), and Ni(II) ions. Box-Behnken design was applied to optimize the parameters affecting preconcentration. Following elution with 0.6 mol L^?1 EDTA, the ions were quantified by FAAS. The capacity of the sorbent ranged between 185 and 210 mg g^?1. The limits of detection are 0.15, 0.40, and 0.8 ng mL^?1 for Cd(II), Ni(II), and Pb(II) ions, respectively. The relative standard deviations are <8.5 %. The method was successfully applied to the rapid extraction of trace amounts of these ions from sea food and agri food.

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Graphical abstract (a) A schematic diagram of Fe₃O₄ functionalization by TAR (4-(thiazolylazo) resorcinol). (b) The schematic illustration of the magnetic metal organic framework-TAR nanocomposite. H₃BTC: benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxylic acid; TEA: triethylamine; 3-CPS: 3-chloropropyl triethoxysilane.