An alternate mode of binding of the polyphenol quercetin with serum albumins when complexed with Cu(II)

Polyphenols find wide use as antioxidants, cancer chemopreventive agents and metal chelators. The latter activity has proved interesting in many aspects. We have probed the binding characteristics of the polyphenol quercetin–Cu(II) complex with human serum albumin (HSA) and bovine serum albumin (BSA). Fluorescence studies reveal that the quercetin–Cu(II) complex can quench the fluorescence of the serum albumins. The binding constant (K_b) values are of the order of 10⁵ M^?1 which increased with rise in temperature in case of HSA and BSA interacting with the quercetin–Cu(II) complex. Displacement studies reveal that both the ligands bind to site 1 (subdomain IIA) of the serum albumins. However, thermodynamic parameters calculated from temperature dependent studies indicated that the mode of interaction of the complexes with the proteins differs. Both ΔH° and ΔS° were positive for the interaction of the quercetin–Cu(II) complex with both proteins but the value of ΔH° was negative in case of the interaction of quercetin with the proteins. This implies that after chelation with metal ions, the polyphenol alters its mode of interaction which could have varying implications on its other physicochemical activities.     

Simulating vapour growth morphology of crystalline urea using modified attachment energy model

We report a computational model to simulate vapour growth morphology of urea crystal by considering molecular anisotropy and surface relaxation of different crystal faces. It has been argued that the faces' growth occurs through the adsorption of molecular layers rather than a slice of thickness d_hkl. The molecular layer is a 2-D periodic arrangement of molecules in which each molecule has same the orientation. The molecular orientations in a slice of thickness d_hkl may differ from each other and depend on crystallographic orientation of the slice. The discussed approach has been employed to simulate vapour growth shape of crystalline urea by calculating attachment energy of molecular layers using Hartee–Fock and density functional theories. The calculated growth morphology is in good agreement with the vapour grown shape of urea crystal. The role of thermal and growth kinetics affecting the vapour growth morphology has been discussed. The observed polar growth morphology of urea crystal has also been discussed particularly in the context of different atomic environments of (111) and (?1?1?1) faces.     

All-optical carry lookahead adder with the help of terahertz optical asymmetric demultiplexer

An all-optical model of carry lookahead adder (CLA) implemented with a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)-assisted Sagnac interferometer (TOAD) is presented. The model accounts for the SOA small signal gain, linewidth enhancement factor, the switching pulses energy and width and the Sagnac loop asymmetry. Adder is a very basic component in a central processing unit. The CLA is the highest speed adder nowadays. Theoritical model is presented and verified through numerical simulation. The method promises both higher processing speed and accuracy. The model can be enhanced the functionality in which carry lookahead adder is the basic building block.     

Coverage of generalized confidence intervals

Generalized confidence intervals provide confidence intervals for complicated parametric functions in many common practical problems. They do not have exact frequentist coverage in general, but often provide coverage close to the nominal value and have the correct asymptotic coverage. However, in many applications generalized confidence intervals do not have satisfactory finite sample performance. We derive expansions of coverage probabilities of one-sided generalized confidence intervals and use the expansions to explain the nonuniform performance of the generalized intervals. We then show how to use these expansions to obtain improved coverage by suitable calibration. The benefits of the proposed modification are illustrated via several examples.     

Role of Dimensionality for Photocatalytic Water Splitting: CdS Nanotube versus Bulk Structure

Using state-of-the-art density functional theoretical calculations, we have modelled a facetted CdS nanotube (NT) catalyst for photocatalytic water splitting. The overall photocatalytic activity of the CdS photocatalyst has been predicted based on the electronic structures, band edge alignment, and overpotential calculations. For comparisons, we have also investigated the water splitting process over bulk CdS. The band edge alignment along with the oxygen evolution reaction/hydrogen evolution reaction (OER/HER) mechanism studies help us find out the effective overpotential for the overall water splitting on these surfaces. Our study shows that the CdS NT has a highly stabilized valence band edge compared to that of bulk CdS owing to strong p–d mixing. The highly stabilized valence band edge is important for the hole-transfer process and reduces the risk of electron-hole recombination. CdS nanotube requires less overpotential for water oxidation reaction than the bulk CdS. Our findings suggest that the efficiency of the water oxidation/reduction process further improves in CdS as we reduce its dimensionality, that is going from bulk CdS to one-dimensional nanotube. Furthermore, the stabilized valence band edge of CdS nanotube also improves the photostability of CdS, which is a problem for bulk CdS.     

Dielectric constant of solvents at nano to bulk regimes: linear response theory and statistical mechanics-based approaches

Statistical mechanics and generalised linear response theory based approaches are employed to derive the analytical expressions for size-dependent dielectric constant and normalised orientation polarisation of solvents. As an illustrative example, water is considered and the dielectric constants for the same are calculated over the entire range of water clusters. Our results reveal that the dielectric constant and normalised orientation polarisation are monotonically increasing with the increase in the number of solvent molecules and converge to the respective bulk values in the thermodynamic limit. More importantly, the dielectric constant of water is found to be independent of the nature, geometry and microscopic charges of the non-spherical ions. This finding offers a new platform for calculating the hydration energy and orientation polarisation based on linear response theory for different kinds of ions in the solvent medium.     

Hydrodynamical approach to collective oscillations in metal clusters

In this Letter we present a hydrodynamical approach within the realm of time dependent density functional theory which is based on the particle and the current densities to calculate the excited state energies of many-electron systems. The applicability of the approach is demonstrated by calculating the collective oscillation frequencies of sodium clusters of various sizes within the spherical jellium background model.     

Evaluation of the Pharmacokinetics of the Pancreastatin Inhibitor PSTi8 Peptide in Rats: Integration of In Vitro and In Vivo Findings

PSTi8 is a pancreastatin inhibitory peptide that is effective in the treatment of diabetic models. This study investigates the pharmacokinetic (PK) properties of PSTi8 in Sprague Dawley rats, for the first time. In vitro and in vivo PK studies were performed to evaluate the solubility, stability in plasma and liver microsomes, plasma protein binding, blood–plasma partitioning, bioavailability, dose proportionality, and gender difference in PK. Samples were analyzed using the validated LC-MS/MS method. The solubility of PSTi8 was found to be 9.30 and 25.75 mg/mL in simulated gastric and intestinal fluids, respectively. The protein binding of PSTi8 was estimated as >69% in rat plasma. PSTi8 showed high stability in rat plasma and liver microsomes and the blood–plasma partitioning was >2. The bioavailability of PSTi8 after intraperitoneal and subcutaneous administration was found to be 95.00 ± 12.15 and 78.47 ± 17.72%, respectively, in rats. PSTi8 showed non-linear PK in dose proportionality studies, and has no gender difference in the PK behavior in rats. The high bioavailability of PSTi8 can be due to high water solubility and plasma protein binding, low clearance and volume of distribution. Our in vitro and in vivo findings support the development of PSTi8 as an antidiabetic agent.