Serum pharmacochemistry combined with multiple data processing approach to screen the bioactive components and their metabolites in Mutan Cortex by ultra‐performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

Root cortex of Paeonia suffruticosa Andrews (Paeoniaceae), known as Moutan Cortex (MC), is known to have anti‐allergic and anti‐inflammatory properties. However, the constituents absorbed into blood after oral administration of MC remain unknown. A sensitive and rapid method by ultra‐high‐pressure liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization–quadrupole‐time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry (UPLC‐ESI‐Q‐TOF‐MS) technology and the MetaboLynx^TM software combined with multiple data processing approach (Mdpa) was established to investigate the absorbed constituents in rats after oral administration of MC, providing unique high‐throughput capabilities for drug metabolism study. A hyphenated electrospray ionization and quadrupole‐time‐of‐flight analyzer was used for the determination of accurate mass of the fragment ion in negative mode, with excellent MS mass accuracy and enhanced data acquisition. This rapid automated analysis method was successfully applied for screening and identification of the constituents absorbed and metabolized studies of MC after oral administration to rats. A total of 46 peaks were obtained from MC, 41 of which were tentatively characterized. In the VIP‐plot of orthogonal partial least‐squares discriminant analysis, 23 interesting ions in serum samples were extracted, and 16 parent components and seven metabolites were detected in vivo. The integrative serum pharmacochemistry technique, UPLC‐ESI‐Q‐TOF‐MS, and Mdpa method were successfully applied for rapid discovery of multiple components from MC. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measurement of Ozone Production in Non-thermal Plasma Actuator Using Surface Dielectric Barrier Discharge

Plasma actuators for flow control are intensively studied, but the production of ozone by the surface dielectric barrier discharge used in the actuators has never been quantified. Since ozone is harmful to human health, it is important to quantify its production for an application of this type of actuator on a land vehicle. This paper describes an experimental study to measure the concentration of ozone produced by an actuator with different parameters: amplitude and frequency of the applied high voltage, and the electrode configuration (shape, spacing and length). The results show that, under our experimental conditions, the production of ozone is directly proportional to the power dissipation. The production rate was measured at 21 g/kWh. Although the rate is much lower than that of an industrial ozonizer, it is still far from being negligible and should be taken into account for the future application of these actuators.     

Two new compounds from Melodinus suaveolens

Two new compounds, 19-hydroxy-melodinine K (1) and melodiside (2), and 25 known compounds were isolated from leaves and twigs of Melodinus suaveolens. Their structures were elucidated based on 1- and 2-D NMR, FTIR, UV and MS spectroscopic data. 19-hydroxy-melodinine K showed cytotoxic activity against MDA-MB-231 breast, BCG-823 gastric, SW480 colon and Hela cancer cells.     

Preparation of core–shell structure Fe3O4@SiO2 superparamagnetic microspheres immoblized with iminodiacetic acid as immobilized metal ion affinity adsorbents for His‐tag protein purification

The core–shell structure Fe₃O₄/SiO₂ magnetic microspheres were prepared by a sol–gel method, and immobiled with iminodiacetic acid (IDA) as metal ion affinity ligands for protein adsorption. The size, morphology, magnetic properties and surface modification of magnetic silica nanospheres were characterized by various modern analytical instruments. It was shown that the magnetic silica nanospheres exhibited superparamagnetism with saturation magnetization values of up to 58.1 emu/g. Three divalent metal ions, Cu²⁺, Ni²⁺ and Zn²⁺, were chelated on the Fe₃O₄@SiO₂–IDA magnetic microspheres to adsorb lysozyme. The results indicated that Ni²⁺‐chelating magnetic microspheres had the maximum adsorption capacity for lysozyme of 51.0 mg/g, adsorption equilibrium could be achieved within 60 min and the adsorbed protein could be easily eluted. Furthermore, the synthesized Fe₃O₄@SiO₂–IDA–Ni²⁺ magnetic microspheres were successfully applied for selective enrichment lysozyme from egg white and His‐tag recombinant Homer 1a from the inclusion extraction expressed in Escherichia coli. The result indicated that the magnetic microspheres showed unique characteristics of high selective separation behavior of protein mixture, low nonspecific adsorption, and easy handling. This demonstrates that the magnetic silica microspheres can be used efficiently in protein separation or purification and show great potential in the pretreatment of the biological sample. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assessing the diagnostic power of variables measured with a detection limit

The phenomenon of the limit of detection (LoD) often happens in many practical situations because of technique and instrument limitations. In the literature, some reports show that, in general, to apply conventional methods to evaluate the diagnostic power of variables while ignoring LoD could be seriously biased. Although the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve can be estimated consistently if the distribution of variables are known. In practical situation, such information is usually not available. On the other hand, it has been proved that the area under ROC curve of a variable with a LoD and no distribution assumptions is usually biased no matter what kinds of replacement strategies are used. However, there is a lack of similar studies on the partial area under ROC curve (pAUC), and because this measure is usually preferred in practice, it is of interest to examine whether the estimate of pAUC of a variable measured with a LoD behaves the same. In this study, we found that for some LoD scenarios, and even without distribution assumption, consistent estimate of pAUC can be constructed. When the consistent estimate of pAUC cannot be obtained, the bias can be ineffectual in practical situations, and the proposed estimator can be a good approximation of pAUC. Numerical studies using simulated data sets and real data examples are reported.     

Optimal Reinsurance-Investment Strategy Under Risks of Interest Rate,Exchange Rate and Inflation

Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability - In this paper, we pursue the optimal reinsurance-investment strategy of an insurer who can invest in both domestic and foreign markets. We assume...