Automatic approximation using asymptotically optimal adaptive interpolation

Numerical Algorithms - We present an asymptotic analysis of adaptive methods for Lp approximation of functions f ∈ Cr([a, b]), where $1\le p\le +\infty $ . The methods rely on piecewise...     

Evaluation of education scenarios for acquiring digital competences of secondary school students in Slovenia

Central European Journal of Operations Research - Digital competences are among the most important competences in modern society, with the education system playing a key role in the acquisition of...     

Sensitive CE-MS method for monitoring of riociguat and desmethylriociguat levels in human serum

Riociguat is novel antihypertensive drug for treatment of pulmonary hypertension. As such, it is still being tested in many clinical and pharmacokinetic trials. Existing methods that determine serum riociguat and desmethylriociguat (DMR) are based solely on liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry. Therefore, we present a novel capillary electrophoresis with mass spectrometry method (CE-MS) for their determination in human serum as alternative method for ongoing trials. Complete resolution of both analytes was achieved by means of pH optimization of ammonium formate background electrolytes that are fully compatible with ESI/MS detection. Simple liquid-liquid extraction was used as sample pretreatment. The calibration dependence of the method was linear (in the range of 10–1000 ng/mL), with adequate accuracy (90.1–114.9%) and precision (13.4%). LOD and LOQ were arbitrarily set at 10 ng/mL for both analytes. Clinical applicability was validated using serum samples from patients treated with riociguat in pharmacokinetic study and the results corresponded with reference HPLC-MS/MS values. Capillary electrophoresis proved to be sensitive and selective tool for the analysis of riociguat and DMR.     

Modification of Polylactide Nonwovens with Carbon Nanotubes and Ladder Poly(silsesquioxane)

Electrospun nonwovens of poly(L-lactide) (PLLA) modified with multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) and linear ladder-like poly(silsesquioxane) with methoxycarbonyl side groups (LPSQ-COOMe) were obtained. MWCNT and LPSQ-COOMe were added to the polymer solution before the electrospinning. In addition, nonwovens of PLLA grafted to modified MWCNT were electrospun. All modified nonwovens exhibited higher tensile strength than the neat PLA nonwoven. The addition of 10 wt.% of LPSQ-COOMe and 0.1 wt.% of MWCNT to PLLA increased the tensile strength of the nonwovens 2.4 times, improving also the elongation at the maximum stress.     

The character and the wave front set correspondence in the stable range

We relate the distribution characters and the wave front sets of unitary representation for real reductive dual pairs of type I in the stable range.     

Thermal properties of pressure sintered alumina–graphene composites

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - The work concerns the alumina–graphene materials sintered by two different pressure methods. The different particle sizes of graphene were used....     

Structure determination of KScS2, RbScS2 and KLnS2 (Ln = Nd,Sm, Tb,Dy, Ho,Er, Tm and Yb) and crystal–chemical discussion

The title structures of KScS₂ (potassium scandium sulfide), RbScS₂ (rubidium scandium sulfide) and KLnS₂ [Ln = Nd (potassium neodymium sufide), Sm (potassium samarium sulfide), Tb (potassium terbium sulfide), Dy (potassium dysprosium sulfide), Ho (potassium holmium sulfide), Er (potassium erbium sulfide), Tm (potassium thulium sulfide) and Yb (potassium ytterbium sulfide)] are either newly determined (KScS₂, RbScS₂ and KTbS₂) or redetermined. All of them belong to the α‐NaFeO₂ structure type in agreement with the ratio of the ionic radii r³⁺/r⁺. KScS₂, the member of this structural family with the smallest trivalent cation, is an extreme representative of these structures with rare earth trivalent cations. The title structures are compared with isostructural alkali rare earth sulfides in plots showing the dependence of several relevant parameters on the trivalent cation crystal radius; the parameters thus compared are c, a and c/a, the thicknesses of the S—S layers which contain the respective constituent cations, the sulfur fractional coordinates z(S²⁻) and the bond‐valence sums.