Simultaneous quantification of five major constituents in stems of Dracaena plants and related medicinal preparations from China and Vietnam by HPLC–DAD

A high‐performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method was developed for the simultaneous quantification of five major bioactive constituents in the stems of resiniferous Dracaena plants from China and Vietnam, as well as those in the related traditional Chinese medicinal preparations. A diode array detector with the wavelength of 330 nm was used to monitor resveratrol, 7,4′‐dihydroxyflavone and pterostilbene, while loureirin A and loureirin B were monitored at 280 nm. The five constituents were separated on an Agela SB C₁₈ column by gradient elution using 0.008% (v/v) formic acid solution (A) and acetonitrile (B) as the mobile phase. The validation of the method included recovery, linearity, accuracy and precision (intra‐ and inter‐day variation). The range of recoveries of this method was 98.1–104.9%, with all the constituents showing good linearity (r² > 0.9999). The accuracy and precision were satisfactory, with the overall intra‐ and inter‐day variation being less than 4%. The present method has been successfully applied for the determination of all five constituents in 21 related herbal samples including 10 D. cochinchinensis stem samples, seven D. cambodiana stem samples and four purchased medicinal preparations. The contents of these constituents were analyzed using principal component analysis, which can efficiently identify raw herb of Dracaena from different sources. The study may be considered helpful to the quality control of Dracena plants and its medicinal preparations. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mott–Hubbard transition in a 2D He fluid monolayer

We discuss recent observations of the heat capacity and magnetization of a fluid ³He monolayer adsorbed on graphite plated with a bilayer of HD. Approaching the density at which the monolayer solidifies into a commensurate solid, we observe an apparent divergence of the effective mass. However, the inferred values of F₀^a tend to a constant. We interpret this in terms of a Mott–Hubbard transition between a 2D Fermi liquid and a magnetically disordered solid occurring via the Brinkman–Rice–Anderson–Vollhardt scenario.     

Magnetic properties of 1d systems with a subtle stacking of copper(II) ions

In the last two decades, many studies have been reported on infinite Id networks of magnetically interacting metal ions. Until now, closed-form expressions for the partition function and related properties were mainly derived for the S = f Ising chain model (Ising, 1925), the XY model (Kastura, 1962) or for the classical limit S –t co with arbitrary spin dimensionality (Fischer, 1964). Recently, experimental and theoretical studies have focused on new Id systems made of alternating spin and/or Lande factors (Georges, Curely and Drillon, 1985; Drillon et al., 1983). This has motivated our interest in the behavior of new systems of copper(II) ions in which the magnetic sites form an exotic stacking in one direction of the crystal. Then, the specific behavior is related to the competition between different interactions, as occurs in the systems reported here, namely A₃Cu₃(PO₄)₄, with A = Ca, Sr, Cu₃(PO₄)₂ and Cu₂O(SO₄).     

On Bianchi permutability of Bäcklund transformations for asymmetric quad-equations

We prove the Bianchi permutability (existence of superposition principle) of Bäcklund transformations for asymmetric quad-equations. Such equations and their Bäcklund transformations form 3D consistent systems of a priori different equations. We perform this proof by using 4D consistent systems of quad-equations, the structural insights through biquadratics patterns and the consideration of super-consistent eight-tuples of quad-equations on decorated cubes.     

Monotone insertion and monotone extension of frame homomorphisms

The purpose of this paper is to introduce monotonization in the setting of pointfree topology. More specifically, monotonically normal locales are characterized in terms of monotone insertion and monotone extensions theorems.     

Morita equivalence of dual operator algebras

We consider notions of Morita equivalence appropriate to weak* closed algebras of Hilbert space operators. We obtain new variants, appropriate to the dual algebra setting, of the basic theory of strong Morita equivalence, and new nonselfadjoint analogues of aspects of Rieffel’s W^∗-algebraic Morita equivalence.     

Some remarks in iterated function spaces

In this paper we give some new topological cardinal inequalities in iterated function spaces. Open questions are posed.     

Large deviations for the Boussinesq equations under random influences

A Boussinesq model for the Bénard convection under random influences is considered as a system of stochastic partial differential equations. This is a coupled system of stochastic Navier–Stokes equations and the transport equation for temperature. Large deviations are proved, using a weak convergence approach based on a variational representation of functionals of infinite-dimensional Brownian motion.     

A stabilized semi-implicit Galerkin scheme for Navier-Stokes equations

By introducing a time relaxation term for the time derivative of higher frequency components, we proposed a stabilized semi-implicit Galerkin scheme for evolutionary Navier-Stokes equations in this paper. Analysis shows that such a scheme has weaker stability conditions than that of a classical semi-implicit Galerkin scheme and, when a suitable relaxation parameter σ is chosen, it generates an approximate solution with the same accuracy as the classical one. That means the proposed scheme might use a larger time step to generate a bounded approximate solution. Thus it is more suitable for long time simulations.     

Homotopic properties of confluent maps in the proper category

We establish some properties of homotopical nature for confluent maps in the proper category. We analyze in this setting the characterization of tree-like continua by J.H. Case and R.E. Chamberlin as well as the theorem by T.B. McLean on the preservation of tree-likeness under confluent maps. We give counterexamples for the corresponding proper analogues and we extend results of several authors in classical continuum theory to non-compact spaces. Finally, we describe the behavior of these maps with respect to the fundamental pro-group, generalizing results of J. Grispolakis and other authors. Two questions of interest are still open (Open Question 15 and Conjecture 24).