Design and Synthesis of Some New Furan-Based Derivatives and Evaluation of In Vitro Cytotoxic Activity

New furan-based derivatives have been, designed, synthesized, and evaluated for their cytotoxic and tubulin polymerization inhibitory activities. DNA flow cytometric study of pyridine carbohydrazide 4 and N-phenyl triazinone 7 demonstrated G₂/M phase cell cycle disruptions. Accumulation of cells in the pre-G1 phase and positive annexin V/PI staining, which may be caused by degeneration or fragmentation of the genetic components, suggested that cell death occurs via an apoptotic cascade. Furthermore, compounds 4 and 7 had a strong pro-apoptotic impact through inducing the intrinsic mitochondrial mechanism of apoptosis. This mechanistic route was verified by an ELISA experiment that indicated a considerable rise in the levels of p53 and Bax and a drop in the level of Bcl-2 when compared with the control.     

Dosimetric characteristics of aqueous solution of crystal violet for applications in food irradiation

Aqueous solution of crystal violet has been evaluated spectrophotometrically as a gamma-ray chemical dosimeter. The response of the chemical dosimetric system has also been investigated under different environmental conditions, such as light and temperature. In the present study the response has been measured at two wavelengths; 588 nm (λ_max of the irradiated solution) and 500 nm. The response of the crystal violet dosimeter was linear in the dose range of 50–550 Gy at pH 5.6 when absorption measurements were made at 588 and 500 nm. The response of the crystal violet dosimeter during post-irradiation storage at room temperature in dark showed slight decrease in absorbance at 588 and 510 nm but the response was almost stable at 460 nm. For higher doses, the change in the response was greater as compared to the low doses. Post-irradiation stability during diffused sunlight showed significant decrease in the response for higher dose at 588 and 510 nm and slower decrease in the response for lower dose at the above mentioned wavelengths. However the response was almost stable up to 97 days at 460 nm for higher and lower doses. At 4 °C, the decrease in the absorbance was slower at 588 and 510 nm while the response was almost constant at 460 nm. At higher temperatures, such as 40 °C, the decrease in the absorbance was greater at 588 and 510 nm while at 460 nm the absorbance was almost constant for about 3 months.     

Structural conformation of biomolecules released from temperature-sensitive composite polymer particles – a study by circular dichroism

A conformational study of the biomolecules released from submicron- and micron-sized temperature-sensitive composite polymer particles by decreasing the temperature from 40 to 25 °C was done with circular dichroism and the results were compared with those of the native biomolecules. In almost all cases the biomolecules released retained their native conformational states. Received: 10 April 2001 Accepted: 13 June 2001     

Molecular dynamics simulation of gas adsorption on defected graphene

Gas sensing is one of the most promising applications for graphene. Using molecular dynamics simulation method, adsorption isotherm of xenon (Xe) gas on defected and perfect graphene is studied in order to investigate sensing properties of graphene for Xe gas. In this method, first generation of Brenner many-body potential is used to simulate the interaction of carbon–carbon (C) atoms in graphene, and Lennard–Jones two-body potential is used to simulate interaction of Xe–Xe and Xe–C atoms. In the simulated systems, adsorption coverage, radial distribution function, heat of adsorption, binding energy and specific heat capacity at constant volume are calculated for several temperatures between 90 K and 130 K, and various pressures. It was found that both of the defected and perfect graphene could be introduced as very good candidates for adsorption of Xe gas.     

Nuclear-Electron Overhauser Effect in MC800 Liquid Asphalt Solutions

Experimental results on the extrapolated ultimate enhancement factors of o-, m-, and p-xylene protons at 1.53 mT are obtained for MC800 asphalt solutions. The ultimate enhancement factors are found such as ?26.9, ?25.7, and ?11.7 for o-, m-, and p-xylene, respectively. These results show that the solvent proton Overhauser effect cannot reach the extrapolated enhancement of ?330 in the extreme narrowing case because of occurrence of small scalar interactions in addition to the dipole–dipole interactions between solvent protons and asphalt electrons. The ortho, meta, and para positions of the –CH₃ group change the nature of the interactions. The nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) signal enhancements exhibit a sensitive behavior depending on the chemical environment differing from isomer to isomer. The solvation or association of asphalt in xylene isomers at room temperature is revealed. Quantum chemical calculations for the xylene isomers with the electronic and optical properties; absorption wavelengths, excitation energy, atomic charges, dipole moment and frontier molecular orbital energies, molecular electrostatic potential; are carried out using the density functional theory (DFT) method (B3LYP) with the 6-311G(d,p) basis set by the standard Gaussian 09 software package program. The relative importance of scalar and translational dipolar interaction parameters determined in dynamic nuclear polarization experiments is explained by the electronic structure of HOMO–LUMO of the xylene isomers.     

Tabu search for graph partitioning

In this paper, we develop a tabu search procedure for solving the uniform graph partitioning problem. Tabu search, an abstract heuristic search method, has been shown to have promise in solving several NP-hard problems, such as job shop and flow shop scheduling, vehicle routing, quadratic assignment, and maximum satisfiability. We compare tabu search to other heuristic procedures for graph partitioning, and demonstrate that tabu search is superior to other solution approaches for the uniform graph partitioning problem both with respect to solution quality and computational requirements.