PTML modeling for peptide discovery: in silico design of non-hemolytic peptides with antihypertensive activity

Molecular Diversity - Hypertension is a medical condition that affects millions of people worldwide. Despite the high efficacy of the current antihypertensive drugs, they are associated with...     

A non-isothermal Ginzburg–Landau model in superconductivity: Existence,uniqueness and asymptotic behaviour

In this paper we study a Ginzburg–Landau model which describes the behaviour of a superconducting material including thermal effects. We extend the traditional formulation of the problem, by introducing the temperature as an additional state variable. Accordingly, together with the Gor’kov–Eliashberg system, we introduce an evolution equation for the absolute temperature. We examine in detail the case which allows only variations of the concentration of superconducting electrons and of the temperature, neglecting the electromagnetic field. For this problem existence and uniqueness of the solution are shown. Finally we analyze the asymptotic behaviour of the solutions, proving that the system possesses a global attractor.     

A novel approach based on recurrent neural networks applied to nonlinear systems optimization

This paper presents an efficient approach based on recurrent neural network for solving nonlinear optimization. More specifically, a modified Hopfield network is developed and its internal parameters are computed using the valid subspace technique. These parameters guarantee the convergence of the network to the equilibrium points that represent an optimal feasible solution. The main advantage of the developed network is that it treats optimization and constraint terms in different stages with no interference with each other. Moreover, the proposed approach does not require specification of penalty and weighting parameters for its initialization. A study of the modified Hopfield model is also developed to analyze its stability and convergence. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the performance of the proposed neural network.     

Electrochemical determination of minoxidil in different pharmaceutical formulations by flow injection analysis.

The electrochemical behavior and amperometric-FIA quantification of minoxidil at a glassy carbon electrode is described. The procedure is based on electrochemical oxidation at 0.800 V (vs. Ag/AgCl/NaCl(3 M) in a phosphate buffer solution. Minoxidil was determined over the range 1 x 10(-7) - 1 x 10(-4) M. Different analytical parameters and electrode stability were analyzed to obtain the best electrode performance. The optimal conditions were: working potentials, 0.800 V; flow rate, 0.74 mL min(-1); and solution pH 7.0. This system allowed a sampling rate of 120 samples per hour without any pretreatment. The proposed method was used for minoxidil quantification in pharmaceutical preparations with satisfactory results. The accuracy of FIA-amperometric method was established by a comparison with the conventional UV determination technique using a paired t-test indicating the absence of systematic errors.     

Synthesis and biological evaluation of nucleosides containing 8-amino-imidazo[1,2-α]pyrazine as an isosteric replacement for adenine

A number of novel C-nucleosides related to purine derivatives are described in which the purine moiety has been replaced by the isosteric heterocycle, 8-aminoimidazo[1,2-α]pyrazine. The nucleosides prepared include the ribo, 3′-deoxy, 2′,3′-dideoxy, and 2′,3′-unsaturated derivatives. These C-nucleosides represent derivatives containing acid stable glycosyl bonds and they can be considered as analogs of adenine- or 3-deazaade-nine-containing nucleosides. Preparation of the parent ribonucleoside was accomplished by reaction of the C-l functionalized sugar, (2ξ)-1-amino-3,6-anhydro-l-deoxy-4,5-O-isopropylidene-7-O-trityl-D-allo-heptitol with 2,3-dichloropyrazine, followed by ring closure to the 8-chloroimidazo[1,2-α]pyrazine nucleoside, conversion to the 8-amino derivative and deblocking. A single crystal X-ray structure of the parent 8-amino-3-(β-D-ribofuranosyl)imidazo[1,2-α]pyrazine is described and the conformation compared to that of formycin. The sugar-modified analogs were prepared by subsequent functional group manipulations on the sugar moiety. Biological evaluation against HIV in H9 T-lymphoid cell culture showed the nucleosides to be devoid of significant antiviral activity compared to DDA. The 3-deazaadenosine analog also demonstrated weak suppression of mouse splenic NK activity toward YAC cells (mouse lymphoma cell targets). The imidazo[1,2-α]pyrazine analog of 3-deazaadenosine showed antiinflammatory activity in vivo in the rat pleurisy carrageenan model in the same range with 3-deazaadenosine.     

GAS TRANSPORT PROPERTIES OF A POLYIMIDE BASED ON 2, 2-BIS (3, 4-DECARBOXYPHENYL) HEXAFLUOROPROPANE AND meta-PHENYLENEDIAMINE

By means of a vacuum time-lag method, gas transport properties of apolyimide based on 2, 2- bis (3, 4- decarboxyphenyl ) hexafluoropropane dianhydride (6FDA )and meta- phenylenediamine (mPDA ) have been measured as a function of upstream pres-sure and temperature. The results show that no gas-induced plasticization occurs for thispolyimide in the upstream pressure range from 1 atm to 20atm. The temperature depen-dence of P and D can be described by the Arrhenius equations. The activation energiesof permeation and diffusion were obtained for the gas/polymer pair studied and correlatedwith the size of penetrant gas.     

Stereospecific uncatalyzed alpha-O-glycosylation and alpha-C-glycosidation by means of a new D-Gulal-derived alpha vinyl oxirane

The reaction of alpha vinyl oxirane 5, prepared through a new route to the d-gulal system, with O-nucleophiles (alcohols and di-O-isopropylidene-alpha-d-monosaccharides) and C-nucleophiles (lithium alkyls) affords, in a completely stereoselective way, the corresponding 2-unsaturated alpha O- and C-glycosides having the same configuration as the starting epoxide.