Gut microbiota, diet, and heart disease

Modulation of the gut microbiota is an area of growing interest, particularly for its link to improving and maintaining the systemic health of the host. It has been suggested to have potential to reduce risk factors associated with chronic diseases, such as elevated cholesterol levels in coronary heart disease (CHD). Diets of our evolutionary ancestors were largely based on plant foods, high in dietary fiber and fermentable substrate, and our gut microbiota has evolved against a background of such diets. Therapeutic diets that mimic plant-based diets from the early phases of human evolution may result in drug-like cholesterol reductions. In contrast, typical Western diets low in dietary fiber and fermentable substrate, and high in saturated and trans fatty acids, are likely contributors to the increased need for pharmacological agents for cholesterol reduction. The gut microbiota of those consuming a Western diet are likely underutilized and depleted of metabolic fuels, resulting in a less than optimal gut microbial profile. As a result, this diet is mismatched to our archaic gut microbiota and, therefore, to our genome, which has changed relatively little since humans first appeared. While the exact mechanism by which the gut microbiota may modulate cholesterol levels still remains uncertain, end products of bacterial fermentation, particularly the short chain fatty acids (i.e., propionate), have been suggested as potential candidates. While more research is required to clarify the potential link between gut microbiota and CHD risk reduction, consuming a therapeutic diet rich in plant foods, dietary fiber, and fermentable substrate would be a useful strategy for improving systemic health, possibly by altering the gut microbiota.     

Reference trajectory tracking for locally designed coherent quantum controls

Local time control methods are used in the simulation of quantum control phenomena because they conveniently ensure an increase of a predefined performance index and also avoid singularities associated with tracking procedures. However, the drawback of the existing implementations is that they only take into account one-photon, direct transitions and may stop at nonoptimal values of the index. We propose in this paper a modification of the currently used algorithms that addresses this issue and explain how the convergence is improved. Furthermore, when iterations are required, we show that this approach can be inserted into a monotonically convergent algorithm.     

A homogenization approach for the motion of motor proteins

We consider the asymptotic behavior of an evolving weakly coupled Fokker–Planck system of two equations set in a periodic environment. The magnitudes of the diffusion and the coupling are, respectively, proportional and inversely proportional to the size of the period. We prove that, as the period tends to zero, the solutions of the system either propagate (concentrate) with a fixed constant velocity (determined by the data) or do not move at all. The system arises in the modeling of motor proteins which can take two different states. Our result implies that, in the limit, the molecules either move along a filament with a fixed direction and constant speed or remain immobile.     

Inherently chiral calixarenes

Due to the nonplanarity of the basic 1 _n -metacyclophane system, calixarenes and resorcarenes can be transformed into molecules with inherent chirality. Various attempts to achieve this goal are reviewed. Special emphasis is given to derivatives withC _n -symmetry, including derivatives of spherand calixarenes and other calixarene-like macrocycles.This paper is dedicated to the commemorative issue on the 50th anniversary of calixarenes.     

Some inverse scattering problems on star-shaped graphs

Having in mind applications to the fault-detection/diagnosis of lossless electrical networks, here we consider some inverse scattering problems for Schrödinger operators over star-shaped graphs. We restrict ourselves to the case of minimal experimental setup consisting in measuring, at most, two reflection coefficients when an infinite homogeneous (potential-less) branch is added to the central node. First, by studying the asymptotic behavior of only one reflection coefficient in the high-frequency limit, we prove the identifiability of the geometry of this star-shaped graph: the number of edges and their lengths. Next, we study the potential identification problem by inverse scattering, noting that the potentials represent the inhomogeneities due to the soft faults in the network wirings (potentials with bounded H¹-norms). The main result states that, under some assumptions on the geometry of the graph, the measurement of two reflection coefficients, associated to two different sets of boundary conditions at the external vertices of the tree, determines uniquely the potentials; it can be seen as a generalization of the theorem of the two boundary spectra on an interval.     

Efficient separation of nitrite from aqueous solutions by grafting metalloporphyrin on Fe3O4 nanoparticles

A new sorbent comprising 3-aminopropyltriethoxy-silane-coated magnetic nanoparticles functionalized with organic moieties containing the cobalt(III) porphyrin complex Co (TCPP) [TCPP: 4,4′,4″,4″′-(21H,23H-porphine-5,10,15,20-tetrayl)tetrakis (benzoic acid)], was prepared, for nitrite removal from drinking water. Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles were synthesized by co-precipitation of Fe²⁺ and Fe³⁺, then surface of the Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles was modified with APTES and Co (TCPP). The sorbent was characterized using FTIR, TGA, XRD, SEM and TEM analysis. The batch experiments showed that the proposed sorbent can effectively be used to remove nitrite from water. Various parameters such as pH of the solution, contact time, sorbent dosage, concentration of desorbing reagent, and influence of other interfering anions have been investigated. Under optimal conditions for a nitrite concentration of 10 mg L^?1 (i.e., contact time 15 min, pH 5.5 and nanosorbents dosage 100 mg), the percentage of the extracted nitrite ions was 92.0. Nitrite sorbing material was regenerated with 10 mM NaOH up to 97.0 %. The regeneration studies also showed that nanosorbents are regenerable and can be used for a couple of times.     

Synthesis, characterization, X-ray structural analysis and study of oxidative properties of a chlorochromate(VI) complex with benzyltriphenylphosphonium cation

Benzyltriphenylphosphonium chlorochromate(VI), [(PhCH₂)Ph₃P][CrO₃Cl], BTriPPCC, is easily synthesized in a nearly quantitative yield by direct reaction of Cr(VI) oxide and benzyltriphenylphosphonium chloride. The complex was characterized by physico-chemical and spectroscopic methods. The use of phosphonium counter ion, improves the quality of the BTriPPCC crystals. The compound was indeed crystallized and structurally characterized by X-ray diffraction at 170(2) K. This compound is a versatile reagent for the efficient and selective oxidation of organic substrates, in particular of alcohols to the corresponding aldehydes or ketones, in mild conditions. Due to the stability and solubility of BTriPPCC, the reactions can be performed at room temperature and the separation of the products is easy.     

A Hamilton–Jacobi method to describe the evolutionary equilibria in heterogeneous environments and with non-vanishing effects of mutations

In this note, we characterize the solution to a system of elliptic integro-differential equations describing a phenotypically structured population subject to mutation, selection, and migration. Generalizing an approach based on the Hamilton–Jacobi equations, we identify the dominant terms of the solution when the mutation term is small (but nonzero). This method was initially used, for different problems arisen from evolutionary biology, to identify the asymptotic solutions, while the mutations vanish, as a sum of Dirac masses. A key point is a uniqueness property related to the weak KAM theory. This method allows us to go further than the Gaussian approximation commonly used by biologists, and is an attempt to fill the gap between the theories of adaptive dynamics and quantitative genetics.     

Electrocatalytic and selective determination of d‐penicillamine in the presence of tryptophan using a benzoylferrocene‐modified carbon nanotube paste electrode

Two amino acids – d ‐penicillamine (D‐PA) and tryptophan (TRP) – could be simultaneously determined in an aqueous solution (pH 7.0) using a novel benzoylferrocene‐modified carbon nanotube paste electrode. The results indicate that the electrode is efficient in terms of its electrocatalytic activity for the oxidation of D‐PA, leading to an overpotential reduction by more than 155 mV. Using square wave voltammetry, measurement of D‐PA and TRP in one mixture could be done independently from each other with a potential difference of about 205 mV. The proposed electrochemical sensor exhibited a linear calibration plot ranging from 1.0 × 10^?6 to 8.0 × 10^?4 m with a detection limit of 1.3 × 10^?7 m for D‐PA. Finally, the proposed method was applied to the determination of D‐PA in a D‐PA capsule. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lyapunov control of a quantum particle in a decaying potential

A Lyapunov-based approach for the trajectory generation of an N  -dimensional Schrödinger equation in whole RN${\mathbb{R}}^N$ is proposed. For the case of a quantum particle in an N-dimensional decaying potential the convergence is precisely analyzed. The free system admitting a mixed spectrum, the dispersion through the absolutely continuous part is the main obstacle to ensure such a stabilization result. Whenever, the system is completely initialized in the discrete part of the spectrum, a Lyapunov strategy encoding both the distance with respect to the target state and the penalization of the passage through the continuous part of the spectrum, ensures the approximate stabilization.