In situ ZnO–PVA nanocomposite coated microfluidic chips for biosensing

Microfluidic chips with integrated fluid and optical connectors have been generated via a simple PDMS master-mould technique. In situ coating using a Zinc oxide polyvinylalcohol based sol–gel method results in ultrathin nanocomposite layers on the fluid channels, which makes them strongly hydrophilic and minimizes auto contamination of the chips by injected fluorescent biomarkers.     

Deacetylation Regioselective De Glycals

ABSTRACT

Hydrazine acetate is shown to effect selective deacetylation on peracetylated glycals like D-xylal, D-glucal, D-galactal and L-rhamnal. It is demonstrated that the observed selectivity on the -4 position cannot be explained by acetyl migration during the reaction.     

Synthesis and characterization of polyurethane‐urea clay nanocomposites using montmorillonite modified by oxyethylene–oxypropylene copolymer

Clay organifier with propylene oxide‐capped polyethylene glycol (PEG) with amine end group (jeffamines ED_600–2003) was synthesized through an ion exchange process between sodium cations in montmorillonite (MMT) and ? NH groups in ED_600–2003. The d‐spacing of organoclay was found to be 1.697–1.734 nm compared to 0.96 nm of pristine MMT. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was used to determine the molecular dispersion of the clay within ED₆₀₀. Polyurethane‐urea/montmorillonite (PUU‐MMT) nanocomposites were prepared via in situ polymerization from polyethylene glycol (PEG 400) or 1,4 butane diol (1,4 BD), toluene diisocyanate (TDI), jeffamines ED_600–2003, and 1–12 wt% of organoclay. Intercalation of PUU into modified clays was confirmed by X‐ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy, and TEM. The barrier properties were significantly reduced; however, the thermal stability was increased in the nanocomposites as compared to the pristine polymer. Nanocomposites exhibited optical clarity and solvent resistance. The mechanical properties and the glass transition temperature of PUU were improved with the addition of organoclay. The incorporation of silicate layers gave rise to a considerable increase in the storage modulus (stiffness), demonstrating the reinforcing effect of clay on the PUU matrix. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Generalized Green Correspondence of Graded Modules

The author studies the Green correspondence and quasi-Green correspondence for indecomposable modules over strongly graded rings. The motivation is to investigate the influence of induction and restriction processes on indecomposability of graded modules.     

Local order in aqueous NaCl solutions and pure water: X-ray scattering and molecular dynamics simulations study

The microstructures of pure water and aqueous NaCl solutions over a wide range of salt concentrations (0-4 m) under ambient conditions are characterized by X-ray scattering and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. MD simulations are performed with the rigid SPC water model as a solvent, while the ions are treated as charged Lennard-Jones particles. Simulated data show that the first peaks in the O...O and O...H pair correlation functions clearly decrease in height with increasing salt concentration. Simultaneously, the location of the second O...O peak, the signature of the so-called tetrahedral structure of water, gradually disappears. Consequently, the degree of hydrogen bonding in liquid water decreases when compared to pure fluid. MD results also show that the hydration number around the cation decreases as the salt concentration increases, which is most likely because some water molecules in the first hydration shell are occasionally substituted by chlorine. In addition, the fraction of contact ion pairs increases and that of solvent-separated ion pairs decreases. Experimental data are analyzed to deduce the structure factors and the pair correlation functions of each system. X-ray results clearly show a perturbation of the association structure of the solvent and highlight the appearance of new interactions between ions and water. A model of intermolecular arrangement via MD results is then proposed to describe the local order in each system, as deduced from X-ray scattering data.     

Validated HPLC and HPTLC stability-indicating methods for determination of alfuzosin hydrochloride in bulk powder and pharmaceutical formulations

Two sensitive, selective, and precise stability-indicating, high-performance liquid chromatography and high-performance thin-layer chromatography methods have been developed for the determination of alfuzosin hydrochloride in the presence of its degradation products. Alfuzosin.HCl was subjected to stress alkaline, acidic, oxidative, thermal, and photo-degradation. The drug could be well separated from the degradation products upon applying the two methods. Separation by HPLC was achieved using an Xterra RP18 column and acetonitrile/0.02 M KH2PO4 (pH=3) in a ratio of 20:80 as mobile phase. The flow rate was 1 mL/min. The linearity range was 0.25 to 11 microg/mL with mean percentage recovery of 100.26 +/- 1.54. The HPTLC method used ALUGRAM Nano-SIL silica gel 60 F254 plates; the optimized mobile phase was methanol/ammonia (100:1.2). Quantitatively the spots were scanned densitometrically at 245 nm. A second order polynomial equation was used for the regression. The range was 0.5-7 microg/spot. The mean percentage recovery was 100.13 +/- 1.67. Two main degradation products were obtained in most stress conditions, separated, and identified by FT-IR and NMR spectral analysis, from which the degradation pathway was proposed. The two methods were validated according to the International Conference on Harmonization. In addition, the HPLC method was used to study the kinetics of alkaline and acid degradation of the drug.     

Dynamics of stochastic 2D Navier-Stokes equations

In this paper, we study the dynamics of a two-dimensional stochastic Navier-Stokes equation on a smooth domain, driven by linear multiplicative white noise. We show that solutions of the 2D Navier-Stokes equation generate a perfect and locally compacting C1,1 cocycle. Using multiplicative ergodic theory techniques, we establish the existence of a discrete non-random Lyapunov spectrum for the cocycle. The Lyapunov spectrum characterizes the asymptotics of the cocycle near an equilibrium/stationary solution. We give sufficient conditions on the parameters of the Navier-Stokes equation and the geometry of the planar domain for hyperbolicity of the zero equilibrium, uniqueness of the stationary solution (viz. ergodicity), local almost sure asymptotic stability of the cocycle, and the existence of global invariant foliations of the energy space.     

Well posedness and stability result for a thermoelastic laminated Timoshenko beam with distributed delay term

In this work, we consider a linear thermoelastic laminated timoshenko beam with distributed delay, where the heat conduction is given by cattaneoâs law. we establish the well posedness of the system. For stability results, we prove exponential and polynomial stabilities of the system for the cases of equal and nonequal speeds of wave propagation.     

Polynomial time algorithms for two special classes of the proportionate multiprocessor open shop

This paper describes a complex scheduling problem taken from a hospital diagnostic testing center that schedules hundreds of patients in an open shop environment consisting of multiple facilities and multiple processors. This scheduling problem, known as the multiprocessor open shop (MPOS) problem, is strongly NP-hard with few published results. Realizing that in many MPOS environments processing times are stage-dependent, not both job and stage-dependent, this paper examines a new class of problems for the MPOS—proportionate ones. This paper exploits the structural nature of the proportionate MPOS and defines new terms. Despite the enormous complexity of the MPOS problem, this work demonstrates that polynomial time algorithms exist for two special cases. Since other applications of this problem exist in service and manufacturing environments, solving the proportionate MPOS problem is not only significant in the theory of optimization, but also in many real-world applications.