Determination of aristolochic acid by capillary zone electrophoresis

A simple and rapid capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) method for the determination of aristolochic acid (AA) in dietary supplements and selected herbs is described. A clear separation of AA from other sample constituents was achieved within 5 minutes without any sample clean up. A mixture of 20 mM-morpholinethanesulphonic acid+10 mM-BisTrisPropane+0.2% hydroxyethylcelullose in 10% methanol serves as a background electrolyte. The linearity, accuracy, intra-assay and detection limit of the developed method are 200–6000 ng/mL, 95–103%, 3.5%, and 50 ng/ml, respectively. Ease of use, sufficient sensitivity and low running cost are the most important attributes of the CZE method. The proposed CZE method was compared with HPLC.     

Composite alternatives in group decision support

Decision theory models of group decision processes usually assume a given set of alternatives, from which the group has to choose. In realistic group decision situations, however, alternatives are often not specified a priori, but are created during the group process from different components introduced by the group members. This paper develops methods for systematically creating such composite alternatives, also taking into account the necessity to keep both the computational effort and the cognitive load to group members within reasonable limits.Paper presented at the International Conference on Support Systems for Decision and Negotiation Processes DNS-92, Warsaw, 1992.     

Copolymers and two-layered composites of poly(<Emphasis Type="Italic">o</Emphasis>-aminophenol) and polyaniline

Electroactive conducting copolymers of aniline (ANI) and o-aminophenol (OAP) and two-layered poly(o-aminophenol) (POAP)/polyaniline (PANI) composites were prepared in aqueous acidic solution by electrode potential cycling. Copolymerization was carried out at different feed concentrations of OAP and ANI on a gold electrode. A strong inhibition of electropolymerization was found at a high molar fraction of OAP in the feed. The copolymers showed good adherence on the electrode surface and gave a redox response up to pH=10.0. Two transitions were observed in the in situ conductivities of the copolymers (as with PANI), but the conductivities were lower by 2.5–3 orders of magnitude as compared to PANI. Electrosynthesis of PANI on POAP modified electrodes showed copolymer formation after reaction initiation and finally formation of a PANI layer at the copolymer/solution interface. The ‘memory effect’ of the bilayer structures of both polymers was discussed in terms of protonation/deprotonation and anion consumption taking place during redox processes of both polymers.     

Brownian motion of single molecules in electric fields

The behavior of negatively charged single rhodamine-labeled molecules excited to fluorescence in confocal volume elements has been investigated in oscillating voltage gradients between 1 and 15 kV/cm. The effective charge of rhodamin labeled deoxy-uridine triphosphate (Rh-dUTP) is dependent on the field strength applied and likely is due to differences in the screening by counter ions. It can be shown that the attractive forces generated by an oscillating dipole can increase the concentration of Rh-dUTP by a factor 2. Likewise a substantial increase of concentration can be obtained for Rh-labeled DNA molecules when linear voltage gradients are applied. The importance for diagnostic analysis at the single molecule level is discussed.     

Synthesis of γ-lactones from alkenes employing p-methoxybenzyl chloride as CH2---CO2 equivalent

The ZnCl₂ catalyzed reaction of p-methoxybenzyl chloride with alkenes yields the 1:1 addition products 3, which are converted into the γ-lactones 4 via Ru(VIII) catalyzed oxidative degradation of the aromatic ring.