Flow-injection spectrophotometric determination of sulfadiazine and sulfamethoxazole in pharmaceuticals and urine.

A rapid and sensitive flow-injection spectrophotometric method is proposed for the determination of sulfadiazine and sulfamethoxazole. This method is based on the diazotization of sulfonamide with sodium nitrite, and a coupling reaction of the diazo-compound with alpha-naphthylamine. The optimum experimental conditions are obtained by using the controlled and weighted centroid simplex method. The linear ranges for the determination of sulfadiazine and sulfamethoxazole are 0.2-20 microg ml(-1) and 0.1-20 microg ml(-1), and their detection limits are 0.06 microg ml(-1) and 0.05 microg ml(-1), respectively, and the sampling frequency is 130 samples per hour. The method has been used to determine sulfadiazine and sulfamethoxazole in pharmaceuticals and urine without separation. The results are in agreement with those obtained by a high-performance liquid chromatograph technique at the 95% confidence level.     

Synthesis and X-ray crystal structure of oxamido-bridged heterobinuclear Ni(Ⅱ)-Cu(Ⅱ) complexes

The two complexes [Ni(oxen)Cu(L)2](ClO4)2.xH2O (L=2,2'-bipyridyl(bpy), 1,10-phenanthroline(phen)) have been synthesized, where oxen is N,N'-bis(2-aminoethyl)oxamido di-anion. The crystal structure of [Ni(oxen)Cu(bpy)2](ClO4)2.CH3OH has been determined by X-ray diffraction method. The crystal is triclinic system, space group P1 with a=12.179(1),b=12.298(2), c=11.476(2) A, a=97.57(1), B=97.52(1), 7=80.29(2), V=1669.04(67) A3, Z=2, Dcalcd=1.667 g/cm3. The structure has been refined to final R of 0.076 and Rw of 0.080, respectively. The complexes have an extended oxamido-bridged structure and consist of Ni(Ⅱ) ion in a square planar environment and Cu(Ⅱ) ion in a distorted octahedral environment.     

Toggle-switchable fluorescence of bisindolylmaleimide derivatives by reversible esterification/hydrolysis

Isomers based on the bisindolylmaleimide architecture were reported in this Letter. Introducing hydroxyl to this architecture lead to quenching the fluorescence of bisindolylmaleimide. The fluorescence was recovered with its hydroxyl group esterified. Ester group can be easily transformed to hydroxyl group by hydrolysis reaction. Thus, a toggle-switchable fluorescence, ‘off-on’ cycle can be established on the basis of reversible esterification/hydrolysis reaction.     

Solubility of methane in octane + ethanol at temperatures from 303.15 K to 333.15 K and pressures up to 12.01 MPa

Solubility of methane in octane + ethanol was measured at temperatures ranging from 303.15 K to 333.15 K and pressures ranging from 2.60 MPa to 12.01 MPa. Experimental data were analyzed using the Soave-Redlich-Kwong equation of state with three types of mixing rules, and the estimated average deviation from the experimental solubility data was less than 3.5 %.     

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering of 4-mercaptobenzoic acid and hemoglobin adsorbed on self-assembled Ag monolayer films with different shapes

Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)-protected silver nanostructures of various shapes, including nanocubes, nanospheres, and hybrid shapes with nanospheres and nanorods, on the surface of glass or Si substrates (PVP-Ag films) are prepared by using electrostatic self-assembly. With 4-mercaptobenzoic acid (4-MBA) as a probe molecule, it is demonstrated that the PVP-protected silver nanocubes films (PVP-Ag NCs) have better surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) activity with an order of magnitude larger enhancement factors (EF) than the PVP-protected silver nanospheres films and the PVP-protected silver hybrid shapes films, which is confirmed by our numerical simulations. The EF of 4-MBA on the PVP-Ag NCs film are up to ~5.38 × 10⁶, and the detection limit is at least down to ~10^?8 M. The uniformity and reproducibility of the SERS signals on PVP-Ag NCs film are tested by point-to-point and batch-to-batch measurements. Meanwhile, the PVP-Ag films are also shown to be an excellent SERS substrate with good biocompatibility for hemoglobin detection. It is shown that the PVP-Ag NCs films can be used as excellent SERS substrate with good activity, uniformity, reproducibility, and biocompatibility and are promising for a myriad of chemical and biochemical sensing applications.     

Beam delivery system with a non-digitized diffractive beam splitter for laser-drilling of silicon

We report a beam-delivery system consisting of a non-digitized diffractive beam splitter and a Fourier transform lens. The system is applied to the deep-drilling of silicon using a nanosecond pulse laser in the manufacture of inkjet printer heads. In this process, a circularly polarized pulse beam is divided into an array of uniform beams, which are then delivered precisely to the process points. To meet these requirements, the splitter was designed to be polarization-independent with an efficiency>95%. The optical elements were assembled so as to allow the fine tuning of the effective overall focal length by adjusting the wavefront curvature of the beam. Using the system, a beam alignment accuracy of<5 μm was achieved for a 12-mm-wide beam array and the throughput was substantially improved (10,000 points on a silicon wafer drilled in ~1 min). This beam-delivery scheme works for a variety of laser applications that require parallel processing.     

Image segmentation based on hierarchical belief propagation with variable weighting parameters

The belief propagation (BP) algorithm is an efficient way to minimize the MRF energy for image segmentation. This paper proposes a hierarchical BP algorithm with variable weighting parameters (HBP-VW) to improve the segmentation accuracy of the BP-based algorithms. In the HBP-VW, two variable weighting parameters are introduced, the global parameter and the local parameter. The global parameter is used to overall adjust the influence of each part in the message update rule. The local parameter is designed to describe the local texture pattern for each site. Texture, remote sensing, and nature images are employed to test the proposed algorithm. Experimental results illustrate a better segmentation accuracy compared with other BP-based algorithms.     

Preparation of phosphors AEu(MoO4)2 (A?=?Li, Na, K and Ag) by?sol-gel method

A series of double molybdates phosphors AEu(MoO₄)₂ (A = Li, Na, K and Ag) have been prepared by sol-gel method. Their crystal structure and luminescent properties have also been investigated in a comparable way. The crystallization processes of the phosphor precursors were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermogravimetry-differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA). Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) was also used to characterize the shape and size distribution of the phosphors. Samples except KEu(MoO₄)₂ showed tetragonal scheelite structure in the range of our experiments, and no phase transition appeared. Phosphor KEu(MoO₄)₂ possessed two structures, and the phase transition took place at about 800°C. All samples with high purity could be obtained at about 500°C for 5 hours, and they all showed intense red light peaked at 616 nm originated from ⁵D₀→⁷F₂ emission of Eu³⁺ under the excitation of 465 nm or 394 nm light. The excitation spectra of phosphors AEu(MoO₄)₂ (A = Li, Na, and K) are composed of a strong broad charge transfer (CT) band and some sharp lines, and the relative intensity of CT band, the two strongest absorption lines at 395 nm and 465 nm are comparative, so these three phosphors are good red phosphor candidates for violet or blue LEDs. For the excitation spectrum of phosphor AgEu(MoO₄)₂, intensities of CT band and the absorption line at 395 nm are much weaker than that of line at 465 nm, thus phosphor AgEu(MoO₄)₂ is only suit for GaN-based blue LED.     

Spectral emissivity of type E235B low carbon structural steel with different roughnesses

A self-built experimental apparatus was employed to study the spectral emissivity of type E235B low carbon structural steel in the wavelength range 2–15 μm at different temperatures by energy comparison method. The surface roughness and topography of the steel E235B were determined by a roughness tester and a scanning electron microscopy, respectively. And then, the spectral emissivity of steel E235B with six different roughnesses was measured before and after oxidation. The measurement results showed that the spectral emissivity increased with the increasing temperature and surface roughness before oxidation. The effect of roughness on the spectral emissivity is different at different wavelength and temperature ranges. However, the oscillatory behavior of the spectral emissivity was observed after oxidation. To explore the possible reasons for emissivity variation, the changes of surface roughness and optical roughness were investigated after oxidation. It is found that both the surface roughness and optical roughness increased after oxidation. Although the optical roughness can be used as one of the parameters to evaluate the effect of surface roughness on the spectral emissivity, it is insufficient to describe the effect of surface morphology on the spectral emissivity.     

Oxygen vacancy pairs on CeO2(110): A DFT + U study

Oxygen vacancy pairs have been suggested to play a role in the reduction of NO molecules on ceria and for the oxidation processes of reducible rare-earth oxides. The formation energy of the oxygen vacancy pairs and the changes in the structural and electronic properties of the ceria (110) surface with oxygen vacancy pairs are investigated using density-functional theory (DFT + U) methodology within the generalized gradient approximation. It is found that the excess electrons localize on the Ce ions neighbouring the vacancies, and the most stable structure for the oxygen vacancy pairs on the ceria (110) surface is at next-nearest-neighbour site.