Minimal Contact Circuits for a Sequence of Boolean Functions

Mathematical Notes -     

Quantitative Analysis of Al in Flour Products by Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy Combined with Partial Least Squares

Journal of Applied Spectroscopy - Based on partial least squares (PLS) analysis, the effects of different smoothing points and different preprocessing methods on the accuracy and precision of the...     

Editorial to the Special Issue: Adsorption,Absorption and Thermochemical Transport Processes in Complex Porous Structures

Transport in Porous Media - The theme of coupling problems for adsorption, absorption and thermochemical transport in porous media is very important for engineering applications. Based on the...     

Formation and pharmacological activity of silicon—chitosan-containing glycerohydrogels obtained by biomimetic mineralization

The biomimetic sol—gel synthesis of silicon—chitosan-containing glycerohydrogels was carried out using silicon tetraglycerolate as a precursor. It was found that chitosan accelerates gel formation in weakly acidic media. In more acidic media, the kinetics of the process changes according to the curve with a maximum, which can be attributed to different mechanisms of silanol condensation before and after the isoelectric point. The investigated silicon—chitosan-containing glycerohydrogels exhibit antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and wound healing activity. The synthesized hybrid glycerohydrogels are promising materials for biomedical applications.     

A paper-based resonance energy transfer nucleic acid hybridization assay using upconversion nanoparticles as donors and quantum dots as acceptors

Monodisperse aqueous upconverting nanoparticles (UCNPs) were covalently immobilized on aldehyde modified cellulose paper via reduction amination to develop a luminescence resonance energy transfer (LRET)-based nucleic acid hybridization assay. This first account of covalent immobilization of UCNPs on paper for a bioassay reports an optically responsive method that is sensitive, reproducible and robust. The immobilized UCNPs were decorated with oligonucleotide probes to capture HPRT1 housekeeping gene fragments, which in turn brought reporter conjugated quantum dots (QDs) in close proximity to the UCNPs for LRET. This sandwich assay could detect unlabeled oligonucleotide target, and had a limit of detection of 13 fmol and a dynamic range spanning nearly 3 orders of magnitude. The use of QDs, which are excellent LRET acceptors, demonstrated improved sensitivity, limit of detection, dynamic range and selectivity compared to similar assays that have used molecular fluorophores as acceptors. The selectivity of the assay was attributed to the decoration of the QDs with polyethylene glycol to eliminate non-specific adsorption. The kinetics of hybridization were determined to be diffusion limited and full signal development occurred within 3 min.     

13C NMR investigations of molecular order of rod-like,bent-core,and thiophene mesogens

In this review, methods to obtain the orientational order of topologically variant molecular mesogens using by one- and two-dimensional (2D) solid-state ¹³C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy are described. Besides ¹³C chemical shifts, the ¹³C─¹H dipolar couplings measured from 2D-separated local field (SLF) technique are used for computing the order parameters of a variety of mesogens. The investigated molecules are composed of a variable number of rings in the core, that is, core ranging from simply one ring to five rings. Among the mesogens investigated, a special focus has been placed on mesogens with thiophene rings, which are gaining popularity as liquid crystalline organic semiconductors. The replacement of a phenyl ring by thiophene in the core has a dramatic influence on molecular topology, as observed from the measured order parameters. The review highlights the advantages of the 2D SLF method for understanding the local dynamics and for mapping the topology of mesogens through the measured order parameters. SLF NMR studies of as many as 24 molecular mesogens that vary in terms of the molecular structure as well as topology are covered in the review. Order parameters of the rings have been estimated from the ¹³C─¹H dipolar couplings in the nematic, smectic A, smectic C, and tilted hexatic phases as well as in B₁ and B₂ mesophases of various mesogens. It is anticipated that, in the years to come, the 2D SLF method would provide advanced molecular information on structurally complex mesogens that are emerging in liquid crystal science through the incessant efforts of synthetic chemists. The mini review covers the orientational order of topologically variant molecular mesogens determined by 1D and 2D solid-state ¹³C NMR spectroscopy. Accordingly, rod-like, bent-core, and thiophene mesogens were subjected to 2D SLF measurements to get the order parameters from which the topology was established. The replacement of phenyl ring by thiophene and its influence on order parameters as well as on molecular topology is also discussed.     

Identifying aspirin polymorphs from combined DFT-based crystal structure prediction and solid-state NMR

A combined experimental and computational approach was used to distinguish between different polymorphs of the pharmaceutical drug aspirin. This method involves the use of ab initio random structure searching (AIRSS), a density functional theory (DFT)-based crystal structure prediction method for the high-accuracy prediction of polymorphic structures, with DFT calculations of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) parameters and solid-state NMR experiments at natural abundance. AIRSS was used to predict the crystal structures of form-I and form-II of aspirin. The root-mean-square deviation between experimental and calculated ¹H chemical shifts was used to identify form-I as the polymorph present in the experimental sample, the selection being successful despite the large similarities between the molecular environments in the crystals of the two polymorphs.