Magnetite nanoparticles−based hydroxyl radical scavenging activity assay of antioxidants using N,N-dimethyl-p-phenylenediamine probe

Excessive amounts of reactive oxygen species (ROS), unless counterbalanced by antioxidants, can cause cellular damage under oxidative stress conditions; therefore, antioxidative defenses against ROS must be measured. With the development of nanotechnology, nanoparticles have found numerous applications in science, health, and industries. Magnetite nanoparticles (Fe ₃ O ₄ :MNPs) have attracted attention because of their peroxidase-like activity. In this study, hydroxyl radicals (•OH) generated by MNPs-catalyzed degradation of H ₂ O ₂ converted the N,N-dimethyl-p-phenylenediamine (DMPD) probe into its colored DMPD•+ radical cation, which gave an absorbance maximum at λ = 553 nm. In the presence of antioxidants, •OH was partly scavenged by antioxidants and produced less DMPD• ⁺ , causing a decrease in the 553 nm-absorbance. Antioxidant concentrations were calculated with the aid of absorbance differences between the reference and sample solutions. The linear working ranges and trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity coefficients of different classes of antioxidants were determined by applying the developed method. In addition, binary and ternary mixtures of antioxidants were tested to observe the additivity of absorbances of mixture constituents. The method was applied to real samples such as orange juice and green tea. Student t-test, F tests, and the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient were used for statistical comparisons.     

Chiral 2-(2-hydroxyaryl)alcohols (HAROLs) with a 1,4-diol scaffold as a new family of ligands and organocatalysts

Efficient and modular syntheses of chiral 2-(2-hydroxyaryl)alcohols (HAROLs), novel 1,4-diols carrying one phenolic and one alcohol hydroxyl group, have been developed which led to generation of a small library of structurally diverse HAROLs in enantiomerically pure form. Of the different HAROLs examined, a HAROL based on the indan backbone exhibited the highest activity and enantioselectivity in the 1,2-addition of certain organometallic compounds to aldehydes in the presence of Ti(OⁱPr)₄ (up to 97% y, 88% ee) and performed as a hydrogen-bond donor organocatalyst in the Morita-Baylis-Hillman reaction, promoted by trialkylphosphines.     

Online Solid-Phase Extraction of Cd(II), Cu(II), and Co(II) Using Covalently Attached Bis(salicylaldimine) to Silica Gel for Determination in Food and Water by Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometry

In this study, a novel sorbent material bearing a bis(aldimine) group was designed and successfully synthesized by covalently bonding a 2-[N,N′-bis(salicylaldimine)]aminoethyl amine ligand to the silica gel surface that was characterized by carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen elemental analysis, thermogravimetric analysis, and the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy technique. The sorbent was used for the online solid-phase extraction (SPE) of Cd(II), Cu(II), and Co(II) ions for their determination at trace concentration levels by flame atomic absorption spectrometry. The effective factors for the online SPE such as the pH and the flow rate of the sample solution, and type, volume, and flow rate of eluent were investigated. The concentration levels of Cd(II), Cu(II), and Co(II) were measured in certified reference materials including Virginia tobacco leaves (CTA-VTL-2) and water-trace elements (NWTM-15.2) to validate this method. The metal levels in environmental water were determined by this method, and the values were checked by spiking and recovery experiments and independent analysis by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. The adsorption capacities of the sorbent were found to be 41.2, 31.6, and 25.6?mg/g for Cd(II), Cu(II), and Co(II), respectively. This method was also successfully used for the determination of Cd(II), Cu(II), and Co(II) concentrations in rice and molasses.     

ESR determination of the thermal stability of Mn<Superscript>2+</Superscript> ion binding sites in different legume lectins

The legume lectins are a large family of homologous carbohydrate-binding proteins. Their carbohydrate specificity and quaternary structure vary widely. The carbohydrate binding activity of legume lectins depends on the simultaneous presence of calcium and transition-metal ions, especially the Mn²⁺ ion. In the present work, thermal stabilities of Mn²⁺ binding sites in pea, lentil, soybean and kidney-bean lectins have been studied by electron spin resonance spectroscopy in the temperature range of 120–400 K in different atmospheres. The evolution of parameters, such as the line width, peak-to-peak intensity associated with the hyperfine transition [m _I (+5/2) → m′ _I (−5/2)] at the lowest magnetic field side of the central electron transition [m _S (+1/2) → m′ _S (−1/2)] of the Mn⁺² ion, g-factor and hyperfine splitting was evaluated. Annealing was also performed at high temperatures (353, 373, 383, 403 and 443 K) and the oxidation activation energy of Mn²⁺ ions in the indicated legumes was determined.     

Nanoplasmonic directional couplers and Mach–Zehnder interferometers

We present a novel design and analysis of two nano-scale plasmonic devices: a directional coupler and a Mach–Zehnder interferometer. The designs of the two devices are based on our recent work on the air-gap coupler that resulted in high coupling efficiency between a dielectric waveguide and a plasmonic waveguide. The two devices are embedded between two dielectric waveguides and operate at optical telecom wavelengths. The overall efficiency was 37% for a 2×2 directional coupler switch and above 50% for the proposed designs for a Mach–Zehnder Interferometer. The efficiency in the proposed devices can be increased using broader plasmonic waveguides.     

Synthesis,Characterization, DNA Binding Studies,Photocleavage, Cytotoxicity and Docking Studies of Ruthenium(II) Light Switch Complexes

A new ligand 3-(1H-imidazo[4,5-f][1,10]phenanthrolin-2yl)phenylboronic acid and its (IPPBA) three ruthenium(II) complexes [Ru(phen)₂(IPPBA)](ClO₄)₂ (1), [Ru(bpy)₂(IPPBA)](ClO₄)₂ (2) and [Ru(dmb)₂(IPPBA)](ClO₄)₂ (3) have been synthesized and characterized by elemental analysis, UV/VIS, IR, ¹H-NMR,¹³C-NMR and mass spectra. The binding behaviors of the three complexes to calf thymus DNA were investigated by absorption spectra, emission spectroscopy, viscosity measurements, thermal denaturation and photoactivated cleavage. The DNA-binding constants for complexes 1, 2 and 3 have been determined to be 7.9?×?10⁵ M^?1, 6.7?×?10⁵ M^?1 and 2.9?×?10⁵ M^?1. The results suggest that these complexes bound to double-stranded DNA in an intercalation mode. Upon irradiation at 365 nm, three ruthenium complexes were found to promote the cleavage of plasmid pBR322 DNA from super coiled form ? to nicked form ??. Further in the presence of Co²⁺, the emission of DNA–Ru(ΙΙ) complexes can be quenched. And when EDTA was added, the emission was recovered. The experimental results show that all three complexes exhibited the “on–off–on” properties of molecular “light switch”. The highest Cytotoxicity potential of the complex1 was observed on the Human alveolar adenocarcinoma (A549) cell line. Good agreement was generally found between the spectroscopic techniques and molecular docked model which provides further evidence of groove binding.     

A new Taylor collocation method for nonlinear Fredholm‐Volterra integro‐differential equations

The aim of this article is to present an efficient numerical procedure for solving nonlinear integro‐differential equations. Our method depends mainly on a Taylor expansion approach. This method transforms the integro‐differential equation and the given conditions into the matrix equation which corresponds to a system of nonlinear algebraic equations with unkown Taylor coefficients. The reliability and efficiency of the proposed scheme are demonstrated by some numerical experiments and performed on the computer program written in Maple10. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 2010     

An efficient computational method for a stochastic dynamic lot-sizing problem under service-level constraints

We provide an efficient computational approach to solve the mixed integer programming (MIP) model developed by Tarim and Kingsman [8] for solving a stochastic lot-sizing problem with service level constraints under the static-dynamic uncertainty strategy. The effectiveness of the proposed method hinges on three novelties: (i) the proposed relaxation is computationally efficient and provides an optimal solution most of the time, (ii) if the relaxation produces an infeasible solution, then this solution yields a tight lower bound for the optimal cost, and (iii) it can be modified easily to obtain a feasible solution, which yields an upper bound. In case of infeasibility, the relaxation approach is implemented at each node of the search tree in a branch-and-bound procedure to efficiently search for an optimal solution. Extensive numerical tests show that our method dominates the MIP solution approach and can handle real-life size problems in trivial time.     

Physical, structural, and luminescence studies of Nd3+ doped MgO-ZnO borate glass

A series of borate glass of the system xNd₂O₃-5MgO-20ZnO-(75 ? x)B₂O₃, where x = 0.5, 1.0,1.5, 2.0, and 2.5 was successfully fabricated using melt quench method. The properties of the glass were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), absorption and luminescence spectra. The upconversion properties of Nd³⁺ doped borate glass were observed by using 574 nm excitation wavelength corresponding to ⁴ I _15/2 → ² H _114/2 transition. The emission bands centered at 460, 500 and 620 nm which corresponding to the Nd³⁺ transitions, ⁴ F _7/2 → ⁴ I _15/2, ² H _11/2 → ⁴ I _15/2, and ⁴ F _9/2 → ⁴ I _15/2 respectively were observed at room temperature. The presence of Nd³⁺ in borate based glass could intensify the upconversion luminescence spectra as it can potentially be used as host materials for upconversion lasers.     

Optimization of Neutrino Oscillation Parameters Using Differential Evolution

We show how the traditional grid based method for finding neutrino oscillation parameters m2 and tan 2θ can be combined with an optimization technique,Differential Evolution(DE),to get a significant decrease in computer processing time required to obtain minimal chi-square(χ2) in four different regions of the parameter space.We demonstrate efficiency for the two-neutrinos case.For this,the χ2 function for neutrino oscillations is evaluated for grids with different density of points in standard allowed regions of the parameter space of m2 and tan 2θ using experimental and theoretical total event rates of chlorine(Homestake),Gallex+GNO,SAGE,Superkamiokande,and SNO detectors.We find that using DE in combination with the grid based method with small density of points can produce the results comparable with the one obtained using high density grid,in much lesser computation time.