Dissociation of sulfur dioxide by ultraviolet multiphoton absorption between 224 and 232 nm

Multiphoton excitation and dissociation of SO(2) have been investigated in the wavelength range from 224 to 232 nm. Strong evidence is found for two-photon excitation to the H Rydberg state, followed by dissociation to SO + O and ionization of the SO product by absorption of a third photon. The two-photon excitation is resonantly enhanced via the C (1)B(2) intermediate state, and the two-photon yield spectrum thus bears a strong resemblance to the spectrum of this intermediate. Imaging of the O((3)P(2)), S((1)D(2)), and SO products suggests that, following dissociation of SO(2) from the H state, SO is produced in the A and B electronic states. S((1)D(2)) is produced both from two-photon dissociation of SO(2) to give S((1)D(2)) + O(2) and by single-photon dissociation of SO(+). In the former process, the O(2) is likely formed in all of its lowest three electronic states.     

Reaction kinetics and critical phenomena: rates of some first order gas evolution reactions in binary solvents with a consolute point

We have measured the rate of carbon dioxide evolution in the aniline catalyzed decomposition of acetone dicarboxylic acid in a mixture of isobutyric acid + water near its consolute point. Within a temperature interval of 1 degrees C, which included the critical solution temperature, the first-order rate constant oscillated in magnitude by about 10% as it passed through three complete cycles of slowing down followed by speeding up. Whereas we can find no ready explanation for the speeding up, we suggest that, because the mixture contained no inert components, the slowing down should belong to the Griffiths-Wheeler class of strong critical effects [Phys. Rev. A 1970, 2, 1047]. As a check on this conclusion, we have measured the rate of the SN1 decomposition of benzene diazonium tetrafluoroborate in 2-butoxyethanol + water near the lower critical solution temperature and also the rate of the acid-catalyzed decomposition of ethyl diazoacetate in isobutyric acid + water near the upper critical solution temperature. Both of these reactions evolve nitrogen. In the first reaction, 2-butoxyethanol is inert, whereas in the second, isobutyric acid is inert. In both cases, because there was one inert component, we regarded the response of the rate constant to temperature in the critical region to be representative of the Griffiths-Wheeler class of weak critical effects. Within our accuracy of measurement of about 2% in the rate constant and about 1 mK in the temperature, we could detect no effect of the critical point on the rates of either of these reactions, suggesting that a weak effect may be too small to be seen with our experimental apparatus. The successful observation of a critical effect in the rate of decomposition of acetone dicarboxylic acid proves, however, that kinetic critical phenomena are observable in heterogeneous reactions.     

Application of divergent multi-component reactions in the synthesis of a library of peptidomimetics based on γ-amino-α,β-cyclopropyl acids

The multi-component condensation of organozirconocene, aldimine and zinc carbenoid was applied to the stereoselective synthesis of cyclopropane amino acid derivatives. These compounds served as scaffolds for the preparation of a 46-member library. The C- and N-termini of the cyclopropane amino acid derivatives were diversified by condensations with ten amines and ten acylating agents, respectively. To improve yields and accelerate library synthesis, most products were prepared under microwave irradiation and purified by polymer-bound scavengers and SPE methodology. All compounds were analyzed by LC-MS and a representative selection was fully characterized.     

Year-long biophoton measurements: normalized frequency count analysis and seasonal dependency

Biophoton emissions from three healthy human subjects were measured for 52 weeks. The active nature of dorsal hands and personal discernable patterns in palmar hands were investigated through frequency count analysis of biophoton emission rates. Also, the seasonal dependency of biophoton emission rates from human hands was studied and we found that emission rates were lowest in autumn. There was a reversion of relative emission rates from the palms and the dorsa depending upon the season. The emission rates from the palms remain rather stable throughout the year, but those from the dorsa vary widely depending upon the season. These features of biophoton emission rates were considered in light of the diagnostic view of traditional Chinese medicine.     

New hydrolysis method for extremely small amount of lipids and capillary gas chromatographic analysis as n(O)-tert.-butyldimethylsilyl fatty acid derivatives compared with methyl ester derivatives

The organic basic solution, 1 M tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) in methanol, was employed for the hydrolysis of extremely small amounts of lipids compared to the classical inorganic basic solution, 1 M KOH in ethanol. The hydrolysed fatty acids were derivatized as N(O)-tert.-butyldimethylsilyl (tBDMSi) esters with N-methyl-N-(tert.-butyldimethylsilyl) trifluoroacetamide (MTBSTFA) and compared with the classical derivatives, the methyl esters, made by the BF3-methanol method. Recoveries of fatty acids determined on the standard fatty acids and soybean oil hydrolysed with TMAH were high: about 1.1-2.1- and 2.0-5.4-times, respectively, in all fatty acids compared with the hydrolysis by KOH regardless of derivatization method. The relative standard deviations (RSDs) on the recoveries of standard fatty acids were less than 5% when hydrolysed with TMAH, regardless of derivatives, but when hydrolysed with KOH, RSDs were more than 5% for most fatty acids, especially for long-chain fatty acids. The RSDs on the recoveries of fatty acids on the soybean oil were also very high in the KOH hydrolysis. Fatty acid compositions of soybean oil were similar in the main fatty acids regardless of hydrolysis methods, but showed slightly different values, depending on the methods of derivatization. RSDs were also very high in the KOH hydrolysis. In view of these results, precision of analysis by KOH hydrolysis was very poor, so we could not rely on the data. On the other hand, the reliability of data by TMAH hydrolysis method was very high, so it is a useful new hydrolysis method for extremely small amounts of lipid samples. Both derivatives of 35 standard fatty acids were successfully separated on a HP-1 nonpolar capillary column. tBDMSi derivatives were completely resolved in 70 min by 295 degrees C. In the methyl ester derivatives it took about 80 min to get satisfying resolution, but these derivatives were completely resolved by 250 degrees C. The sensitivity of tBDMSi derivatives was about 1.5-6.3-times higher than that with methyl ester derivatives. The stability of tBDMSi derivatives was constant for about 144 h except arachidic, docosahexanoic, behenic and heneicosanoic acids, which were stable for only 86 h.     

Preparation, characterization, and reactivity of Pt/SDBC catalysts for the hydrogen-water isotopic exchange reaction

Pt/SDBC catalysts, which are used for the hydrogen-water isotopic exchange reaction, were prepared. TGA experiments showed that the treatment temperature of Pt/SDBC catalysts in inert gas is limited to 400 °C and the maximum allowable heat treatment temperature in oxygen is 200 °C. From nitrogen adsorption and hydrogen chemisorption measurements, it was shown that the dispersion of platinum particles depended on the physical properties, i.e., specific surface area and pore structure of SDBC. It was found that the heat treatment could not impact the structure of SDBC and the oxygen treatment at 150 °C improved the platinum dispersion. It was shown by XPS analysis that the oxygen treatment of impregnated Pt/SDBC increased the fraction of platinum metal state and platinum dispersion. As the supported platinum area increases, the catalytic activity of Pt/SDBC for the hydrogen-water vapor isotopic exchange reaction increases. It indicates that the hydrogen chemisorption measurement can be used to estimate the catalytic activities of Pt/SDBC catalysts. It was not observed that the particle size of supported platinum affected the specific reaction rate at 60 °C. It implies that this reaction is structure insensitive.     

Drug-likeness scoring based on unsupervised learning

Drug-likeness prediction is important for the virtual screening of drug candidates. It is challenging because the drug-likeness is presumably associated with the whole set of necessary properties to pass through clinical trials, and thus no definite data for regression is available. Recently, binary classification models based on graph neural networks have been proposed but with strong dependency of their performances on the choice of the negative set for training. Here we propose a novel unsupervised learning model that requires only known drugs for training. We adopted a language model based on a recurrent neural network for unsupervised learning. It showed relatively consistent performance across different datasets, unlike such classification models. In addition, the unsupervised learning model provides drug-likeness scores that well separate distributions with increasing mean values in the order of datasets composed of molecules at a later step in a drug development process, whereas the classification model predicted a polarized distribution with two extreme values for all datasets presumably due to the overconfident prediction for unseen data. Thus, this new concept offers a pragmatic tool for drug-likeness scoring and further can be applied to other biochemical applications.

A new quantification method of drug-likeness based on unsupervised learning. The method only uses drug molecules as training set without any non-drug-like molecules.     

Investigation of Rotating Arc-Catalytic Reactor for CF4 Removal with High Energy Efficiency

Plasma Chemistry and Plasma Processing - CF4 is commonly used in semiconductor industries, and its removal requires a large amount of energy because it is a highly stable perfluorinated compound....     

Electrochemical Detection of Lead Ion Based on a Peptide Modified Electrode

A novel biosensor harnessing a peptide layer which has specific affinity to lead ion proved to be highly effective for electrochemical analysis of lead ions. The peptide modified electrode was used for the electrochemical analysis of various trace metal ions by square wave voltammetry. Compared to the other ions investigated, the peptide modified electrode was found to be highly selective to Pb²⁺ in the range of 50–700 nM. Furthermore, the biosensor exhibited a high reusability and good spike recovery in the tap water containing various concentration of Pb²⁺.     

Crucial role of HMGA1 in the self-renewal and drug resistance of ovarian cancer stem cells

Cancer stem cells are a subpopulation of cancer cells characterized by self-renewal ability, tumorigenesis and drug resistance. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of HMGA1, a chromatin remodeling factor abundantly expressed in many different cancers, in the regulation of cancer stem cells in ovarian cancer. Spheroid-forming cancer stem cells were isolated from A2780, SKOV3 and PA1 ovarian cancer cells by three-dimensional spheroid culture. Elevated expression of HMGA1 was observed in spheroid cells along with increased expression of stemness-related genes, such as SOX2, KLF4, ALDH, ABCB1 and ABCG2. Furthermore, spheroid A2780 cells, compared with adherent cells, showed higher resistance to chemotherapeutic agents such as paclitaxel and doxorubicin. HMGA1 knockdown in spheroid cells reduced the proliferative advantage and spheroid-forming efficiency of the cells and the expression of stemness-related genes. HMGA1 overexpression in adherent A2780 cells increased cancer stem cell properties, including proliferation, spheroid-forming efficiency and the expression of stemness-related genes. In addition, HMGA1 regulated ABCG2 promoter activity through HMGA1-binding sites. Knockdown of HMGA1 in spheroid cells reduced resistance to chemotherapeutic agents, whereas the overexpression of HMGA1 in adherent ovarian cancer cells increased resistance to chemotherapeutic agents in vitro. Furthermore, HMGA1-overexpressing A2780 cells showed a significant survival advantage after chemotherapeutic agent treatment in a xenograft tumorigenicity assay. Together, our results provide novel insights regarding the critical role of HMGA1 in the regulation of the cancer stem cell characteristics of ovarian cancer cells, thus suggesting that HMGA1 may be an important target in the development of therapeutics for ovarian cancer patients.