Solidified floating organic drop microextraction for pre-concentration and trace monitoring of cadmium ions in environmental food and water samples

In this research, solidified floating organic drop microextraction as an efficient sample preparation method was used for trace monitoring of cadmium ions in environmental samples. In this method, a free microdroplet of 1-undecanol is floated on the surface of aqueous solution and agitated by a stirring bar placed on the bottom of the sample vial. Cadmium ions were complexed with neocuproine to obtain hydrophobic complex and extracted to extraction solvent. The extracted target ions were determined by flow injection–flame atomic absorption spectrometry. The effect of important factors on the extraction of target ions by the proposed sample preparation method was evaluated and optimized. The limit of detection, relative standard deviation (%) and enrichment factor of the method were 0.02, 3.7 and 98.5%, respectively. The validation of the method was examined by the analysis of cadmium ions in the certified reference material (sea food mix), and the obtained data can proof the reliability of the method for trace detection of cadmium ions. The method was successfully applied for determination of cadmium in the real food and water samples, and satisfactory relative recoveries (97–102%) were achieved.     

New GC quartz-lined aluminum capillary columns coated with graphitized carbon black modified by liquid phases

Summary Fused silica is by far the best material for most kinds of GC capillary columns but in some particular conditions, when a drastic acidic or alkaline treatment is required, this material and especially the polyimide protector layer do not possess high chemical resistance and could easily break down. In order to overcome this disadvantage, in this paper, we present a new type of column — a quartz-lined aluminum capillary coated with graphitized carbon black modified by liquid phases by using a new coating procedure. With the above material a capillary column for amine analysis, and another for the analysis of VOCs and oil products are obtained. Some characteristic applications of both columns are reported.     

Application of polymer-bound thiazolium salts to the synthesis of acyloins and benzoins: Effects of solvent and substituents of the thiazolium nucleus

Covalent immobilization of the thiazole nucleus on a chloromethylated polystyrene copolymer results in the formation of a catalytically active thiazolium salt, capable of repeated acyloin and benzoin condensations. The nature of the solvent and the substituents on the thiazolium nucleus has been found to have marked effects of the rate of catalysis.     

Complete separation of ephedrines by graphite-layer open-tubular (GLOT) column

Summary A reversed phase high performance liquid chromatographic (RP-HPLC) method for the analysis of amino acids in kelp, using precolumn derivatization, is described. Phenylisothiocyanate (PITC) was used as the reagent for derivatization. The kelp samples were prepared by microwave hydrolysis in only 5 min; seventeen PTC amino acids were separated after hydrolysis and derivatization within 12 min. The coefficients of variation were >1.94 and the correlation coefficients for concentration versus response were >0.999 for all derivatives. The ratio of branched amino acid (BAA) to aromatic amino acid (AAA) was also studied. The method has the advantage of shorter hydrolysis and analysis times with optimum separation. In addition, it gives high repeatability of retention times and peak areas for all the amino acids present.     

Towards Multilayer QCA SISO Shift Register Based on Efficient D-FF Circuits

Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) is a new technology for replacing CMOS technology at nano-scale dimansion. Shift registers have commonly used circuit in the digital circuits design. In this paper, a new 3-bit Serial Input-Serial Output (SISO) QCA shift register is presented. The proposed circuit uses 3 novel D-Flip-Flops (D-FFs) that are developed in this paper. The proposed circuits are implemented by using QCADesigner tool version 2.0.3. The developed QCA SISO shift register has 120 cells and 0.03 μm² area. The results show that the developed circuits have advantages compared to other QCA circuits in terms of area.     

Design of Low-Complexity and High-Speed Coplanar Four-Bit Ripple Carry Adder in QCA Technology

Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) technology is a suitable technology to replace CMOS technology due to low-power consumption, high-speed and high-density devices. Full adder has an important role in the digital circuit design. This paper presents and evaluates a novel single-layer four-bit QCA Ripple Carry Adder (RCA) circuit. The developed four-bit QCA RCA circuit is based on novel QCA full adder circuit. The developed circuits are simulated using QCADesigner tool version 2.0.3. The simulation results show that the developed circuits have advantages in comparison with existing single-layer and multilayer circuits in terms of cell count, area occupation and circuit latency.     

Conformational flexibility, internal hydrogen bonding, and passive membrane permeability: successful in silico prediction of the relative permeabilities of cyclic peptides

We report an atomistic physical model for the passive membrane permeability of cyclic peptides. The computational modeling was performed in advance of the experiments and did not involve the use of "training data". The model explicitly treats the conformational flexibility of the peptides by extensive conformational sampling in low (membrane) and high (water) dielectric environments. The passive membrane permeabilities of 11 cyclic peptides were obtained experimentally using a parallel artificial membrane permeability assay (PAMPA) and showed a linear correlation with the computational results with R(2) = 0.96. In general, the results support the hypothesis, already well established in the literature, that the ability to form internal hydrogen bonds is critical for passive membrane permeability and can be the distinguishing factor among closely related compounds, such as those studied here. However, we have found that the number of internal hydrogen bonds that can form in the membrane and the solvent-exposed polar surface area correlate more poorly with PAMPA permeability than our model, which quantitatively estimates the solvation free energy losses upon moving from high-dielectric water to the low-dielectric interior of a membrane.     

Congestion analysis in DEA inputs under weight restrictions

Data envelopment analysis (DEA), which is used to determine the efficiency of a decision-making unit (DMU), is able to recognize the amount of input congestion. Moreover, the relative importance of inputs and outputs can be incorporated into DEA models by weight restrictions. These restrictions or a priori weights are introduced by the decision maker and lead to changes in models and efficiency interpretation. In this paper, we present an approach to determine the value of congestion in inputs under the weight restrictions. Some discussions show how weight restrictions can affect the congestion amount.     

On ideals consisting entirely of zero divisors

An ideal Iin a commutative ring Ris called a z°-ideal if Iconsists of zero-divisors and for each a? Ithe intersection of all minimal prime ideals containing ais contained in I.We prove that in a large class of rings, containing Noetherian reduced rings, Zero-dimensional rings, polynomials over reduced rings and C(X), every ideal consisting of zero-divisors is contained in a prime z°-ideal. It is also shown that the classical ring of quotients of a reduced ring is regular if and only if every prime z°-ideal is a minimal prime ideal and the annihilator of a f.g. ideal consisting of zero-divisors is nonzero. We observe that z°-ideals behave nicely under contractions and extensions.