Chemical Profiles and Pharmacological Properties with in Silico Studies on Elatostema papillosum Wedd

The current study attempted, for the first time, to qualitatively and quantitatively determine the phytochemical components of Elatostema papillosum methanol extract and their biological activities. The present study represents an effort to correlate our previously reported biological activities with a computational study, including molecular docking, and ADME/T (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion/toxicity) analyses, to identify the phytochemicals that are potentially responsible for the antioxidant, antidepressant, anxiolytic, analgesic, and anti-inflammatory activities of this plant. In the gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy analysis, a total of 24 compounds were identified, seven of which were documented as being bioactive based on their binding affinities. These seven were subjected to molecular docking studies that were correlated with the pharmacological outcomes. Additionally, the ADME/T properties of these compounds were evaluated to determine their drug-like properties and toxicity levels. The seven selected, isolated compounds displayed favorable binding affinities to potassium channels, human serotonin receptor, cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1), COX-2, nuclear factor (NF)-κB, and human peroxiredoxin 5 receptor proteins. Phytol acetate, and terpene compounds identified in E. papillosum displayed strong predictive binding affinities towards the human serotonin receptor. Furthermore, 3-trifluoroacetoxypentadecane showed a significant binding affinity for the KcsA potassium channel. Eicosanal showed the highest predicted binding affinity towards the human peroxiredoxin 5 receptor. All of these findings support the observed in vivo antidepressant and anxiolytic effects and the in vitro antioxidant effects observed for this extract. The identified compounds from E. papillosum showed the lowest binding affinities towards COX-1, COX-2, and NF-κB receptors, which indicated the inconsequential impacts of this extract against the activities of these three proteins. Overall, E. papillosum appears to be bioactive and could represent a potential source for the development of alternative medicines; however, further analytical experiments remain necessary.     

Infrared Spectroscopic Analysis of Chrysene and 1.2-Benzanthracence in Wax films

Chrysene and 1.2-benzanthracene are successfully doped in a solid wax film and their vibrational spectra in gooo--400cm^-1 are discussed. The harmonic frequencies and relative intensities of both the molecules observed in the film are compared with theoretical values calculated by the density functional theory （DFT） model as well as with the previous experimental data. The effects on spectra due to change of matrix and some additional bands observed in the wax film are also reported. Excellent agreement in the spectral positions and strengths between the experiments and DFT values are found.     

Widrow-cellular neural network and optoelectronic implementation

A new type of optoelectronic cellular neural network has been developed by providing the capability of coefficients adjusment of cellular neural network (CNN) using Widrow based perceptron learning algorithm. The new supervised cellular neural network is called Widrow-CNN. Despite the unsupervised CNN, the proposed learning algorithm allows to use the Widrow-CNN for various image processing applications easily. Also, the capability of CNN for image processing and feature extraction has been improved using basic joint transform correlation architecture. This hardware application presents high speed processing capability compared to digital applications. The optoelectronic Widrow-CNN has been tested for classic CNN feature extraction problems. It yields the best results even in case of hard feature extraction problems such as diagonal line detection and vertical line determination.     

Nitroxide‐mediated radical polymerization in miniemulsion: Bimolecular termination in monomer‐free model systems

Bimolecular termination in nitroxide‐mediated radical polymerization in miniemulsion has been investigated through the heating of a polystyrene–2,2,6,6‐tetramethylpiperidinyl‐1‐oxy macroinitiator and its 4‐hydroxy‐2,2,6,6‐tetramethylpiperidinyl‐1‐oxy analogue in an aqueous toluene dispersion with sodium dodecyl benzenesulfonate as a surfactant at 125 °C. The level of bimolecular termination by combination, evaluated from the high‐molecular‐weight shoulder, was higher in miniemulsion than in solution and increased with decreasing particle size. Quantitative analysis revealed that these results cannot be rationalized solely by nitroxide partitioning to the aqueous phase. The results are explained by an interface effect, by which nitroxide is adsorbed or located at the aqueous–organic interface. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 45: 4995–5004, 2007     

Photon interaction studies using 241Am γ-rays

We have carried out some photon interaction measurements using 59.54 keV γ-rays from a ²⁴¹Am source. These include γ attenuation studies as well as photoelectric absorption studies in various samples. The attenuation studies have been made using leaf and wood samples, samples like sand, sugar etc., which contain particles of varying sizes as well as pellets and aqueous solutions of rare earth compounds. In the case of the leaf and wood samples, we have used the γ-ray attenuation technique for the determination of the water content in fresh and dried samples. The variation of the attenuation coefficient with particle size has been investigated for sand and sugar samples. The attenuation studies as well as the photoelectric studies in the case of rare earth elements have been carried out on samples containing such elements whose K-absorption edge energies lie below and close to the γ-energy used. Suitable compounds of the rare earth elements have been chosen as mixture absorbers in these investigations. A narrow beam good geometry set-up was used for the attenuation measurements. A well-shielded scattering geometry was used for the photoelectric measurements. The mixture rule was invoked to extract the values of the mass attenuation coefficients for the elements from those of the corresponding compounds. The results are consistent with theoretical values derived from the XCOM package.     

Manifestation of diamagnetic chemical shifts of proton NMR signals by an anisotropic shielding effect of nitrate anions

A remarkable upfield shift of the py_α protons of complexed 2,2′-bipyridine in [cis-Pd(bpy)(NO₃)₂] is observed which is considered to originate from the anisotropic influence of suitably positioned coordinated nitrate anions around the Pd(II) centre of the molecule. A typical complexation-induced downfield shift is observed for the NH₂ protons in [cis-Pd(en)(NO₃)₂] where ‘en’ stands for ethylenediamine.