Determination of the Chemical Structure of Poly-β (-)-pinene by NMR Spectroscopy

This paper is dedicated to the memory of our friend and colleague Annalaura Segre.

The chemical structure of a series of β (-)-pinene polymers (PBP) obtained by radiation-induced polymerization, free radical initiation, cationic polymerization over a Friedel-Craft catalyst and by coordinative polymerization over a Ziegler-Natta catalyst has been fully elucidated by ¹H and ¹³C-NMR spectroscopy. 2D NMR techniques have been applied in order to assign all the NMR resonances to the structures of the PBP investigated. The NMR spectra show that the most regular PBP structure is obtained by radiation-induced polymerization followed by the free radical initiated polymerization. The most defective structure has been observed in the case of PBP prepared by cationic mechanism over a Friedel-Crafts catalyst. The discussion accounts for different types of defects and cross-links present in the PBPs investigated whose fundamental structure is based on the p-menthene repeating unit.

NMR self-diffusion measurements have been performed to evaluate the molecular weight of all the PBP investigated. The highest molecular weight (2600 Dalton) was found in the case of PBP prepared by Ziegler-Natta catalyst, while the lowest molecular weight was found in the case of PBP prepared by radiation-induced polymerization (about 1000 Dalton).     

Simultaneous Anodic Stripping Voltammetric Determination of Pb and Cd,Using a Vibrating Gold Microwire Electrode,Assisted by Chemometric Techniques

Simultaneous anodic stripping voltammetric determination of Pb and Cd is restricted on gold electrodes as a result of the overlapping of these two peaks. This work describes the quantitative determination of a binary mixture system of Pb and Cd, at low concentration levels (up to 15.0 and 10.0 µg L^?1 for Pb and Cd, respectively) by differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry (DPASV; deposition time of 30 s), using a green electrode (vibrating gold microwire electrode) without purging in a chloride medium (0.5 M NaCl) under moderate acidic conditions (HCl 1.0 mM), assisted by chemometric tools. The application of multivariate curve resolution alternating least squares (MCR‐ALS) for the resolution and quantification of both metals is shown. The optimized MCR‐ALS models showed good prediction ability with concentration prediction errors of 12.4 and 11.4 % for Pb and Cd, respectively. The quantitative results obtained by MCR‐ALS were compared to those obtained with partial least squares (PLS) and classical least squares (CLS) regression methods. For both metals, PLS and MCR‐ALS results are comparable and superior to CLS. For Cd, as a result of the peak shift problem, the application of CLS was unsuitable. MCR‐ALS provides additional advantage compared to PLS since it estimates the pure response of the analytes signal. Finally, the built up multivariate calibration models, based either in MCR‐ALS or PLS regression, allowed to quantify concentrations of Pb and Cd in surface river water samples, with satisfactory results.     

Use of neutral capillaries for the enantioseparation of N‐benzoylated amino acids by capillary electrophoresis with bromobalhimycin as chiral selector

In this study, the partial filling technique on both polycationic polymer hexadimethrine bromide (HDB) modified capillary and eCAP neutral capillary were systematically compared in order to enhance the enantioseparation ability of bromobalhimycin as CE additive. The separation conditions, such as pH, the plug length, and the concentration of bromobalhimycin, etc., were optimized in order to obtain satisfactory separations. As expected, for all tested 28 N‐benzoylated amino acids, up to five times higher enantioresolutions were obtained on the eCAP neutral capillary compared to that on the polycationic polymer hexadimethrine bromide modified capillary. Moreover, 26 of 28 tested racemic compounds were almost baseline‐ resolved without observing any interference from the front of the plug of bromobalhimycin. Although the limitation of longer running time on the neutral capillary, it allows the use of higher content of bromobalhimycin in the running buffer without any interference on the detection of analytes when enantioseparations are more difficult to obtain.     

Muscle oxygenation measurement in humans by noninvasive optical spectroscopy and Locally Weighted Regression

We have developed a method to make real-time, continuous, noninvasive measurements of muscle oxygenation (Mox) from the surface of the skin. A key development was measurement in both the visible and near infrared (NIR) regions. Measurement of both oxygenated and deoxygenated myoglobin and hemoglobin resulted in a more accurate measurement of Mox than could be achieved with measurement of only the deoxygenated components, as in traditional near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Using the second derivative with respect to wavelength reduced the effects of scattering on the spectra and also made oxygenated and deoxygenated forms more distinguishable from each other. Selecting spectral bands where oxygenated and deoxygenated forms absorb filtered out noise and spectral features unrelated to Mox. NIR and visible bands were scaled relative to each other in order to correct for errors introduced by normalization. Multivariate Curve Resolution (MCR) was used to estimate Mox from spectra within each data set collected from healthy subjects. A Locally Weighted Regression (LWR) model was built from calibration set spectra and associated Mox values from 20 subjects using 2562 spectra. LWR and Partial Least Squares (PLS) allow accurate measurement of Mox despite variations in skin pigment or fat layer thickness in different subjects. The method estimated Mox in five healthy subjects with an RMSE of 5.4%.     

Solubility of novel open-chain crown ether bridged diphosphates in supercritical carbon dioxide

The solubility of newly synthesized chelating agents, i.e., tetraethylene glycol bis (2-ethylhexyl) dimethyl diphosphate (EG4EH), tetraethylene glycol bis (n-octyl) dimethyl diphosphate (EG4Oct), and tetraethylene glycol bis (2-butoxyethyl) dimethyl diphosphate (EG4BOE) in supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO₂) were determined at temperatures ranging from (318.15 to 333.15) K and pressures ranging from (12 to 21) MPa. Solubility increases in the order of EG4Oct (MW = 606.33) < EG4BOE (MW = 582.26) < EG4EH (MW = 606.33), indicating that branched side chains of the ligands play an important part in increasing solubility in scCO₂. Semi empirical density-based models proposed by Bartle and Chrastil were used to correlate the experimental data, and AARD values were calculated to be (1.2 to 2.9)% and (0.40 to 0.93)% for Bartle and Chrastil model, respectively. Additionally, the partial molar volumes of those compounds were estimated following the theory developed by Kumar and Johnston.     

Resonant equations with the Neumann p-Laplacian plus an indefinite potential

We consider a nonlinear Neumann problem driven by the p  -Laplacian plus an indefinite potential and a Carathéodory reaction which at ±∞ is resonant with respect to any nonprincipal variational eigenvalue of the differential operator. Using critical point theory and Morse theory (critical groups), we show that the problem has at least three nontrivial smooth solutions, two of which have constant sign. In the process we prove some results of independent interest concerning the unique continuation property of eigenfunctions and the critical groups at infinity of a C¹$C^1$-functionals.     

A blow‐up criterion to the 2D full compressible magnetohydrodynamic equations

We establish a new regularity criterion for the 2D full compressible magnetohydrodynamic system in a bounded domain. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the ‐boundedness of solution operator families of the generalized Stokes resolvent problem in an infinite layer

In this paper, we prove the ‐boundedness of solution operator families of the generalized Stokes resolvent problem in an infinite layer with resolvent parameter , where , and our boundary conditions are nonhomogeneous Neumann on upper boundary and Dirichlet on lower boundary. We want to emphasize that we can choose 0 < ? < π ∕ 2 and γ₀ > 0 arbitrarily, although usual parabolic theorem tells us that we must choose a large γ₀ > 0 for given 0 < ? < π ∕ 2. We also prove the maximal L_p ? L_q regularity theorem of the nonstationary Stokes problem as an application of the ‐boundedness. The key of our approach is to apply several technical lemmas to the exact solution formulas of a resolvent problem. The formulas are obtained through the solutions of the ODEs, in the Fourier space, driven by the partial Fourier transform with respect to tangential space variable . Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A logarithmic regularity criterion for the 3D generalized MHD system

We prove a logarithmic regularity criterion for the 3D generalized magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) system with diffusion terms ?Δu and (?Δ)^βb, with . Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.