Bilus: A block version of ilus factorization

ILUS factorization has many desirable properties such as its amenability to the skyline format, the ease with which stability may be monitored, and the possibility of constructing a preconditioner with symmetric structure. In this paper we introduce a new preconditioning technique for general sparse linear systems based on the ILUS factorization strategy. The resulting preconditioner has the same properties as the ILUS preconditioner. Some theoretical properties of the new preconditioner are discussed and numerical experiments on test matrices from the Harwell-Boeing collection are tested. Our results indicate that the new preconditioner is cheaper to construct than the ILUS preconditioner.     

Adsorption on film-free and antibody-coated piezoelectric sensors

Frequency responses associated with adsorption of gas-phase toluene, o-nitrotoluene, valproic acid and the pesticides parathion, malathion and disulfoton on uncoated and protein-coated piezoelectric sensors are reported. Valproic acid antiserum and antibody against parathion were included among the set of protein films studied. Responses, which were reversible in all cases, are attributed to chemisorption or physisorption on electrode and protein surfaces. Under the conditions used, no signals corresponding to selective immunochemical binding were found. Highly sensitive responses of protein-coated sensors to the pesticide species were confirmed, with the lower limit of detection being about 0.01 μg l^?1 in nitrogen carrier gas.     

Preparation and characterization of hexamethylenetetramine‐functionalized magnetic nanoparticles and their application as novel catalyst for the synthesis of pyranopyrazole derivatives

A new magnetic catalyst was prepared through the reaction of silanol groups, on the surface of silica‐coated Fe₃O₄ magnetic nanoparticles, with (3‐chloropropyl)triethoxysilane followed by hexamethylenetetramine and chlorosulfonic acid. The obtained magnetic catalyst was characterized using thermogravimetric analysis, vibrating sample magnetometry, scanning electron microscopy and energy‐dispersive X‐ray analysis. Its catalytic activity was investigated in the synthesis of pyranopyrazole compounds, and the results were excellent regarding high yield of the products and short reaction time.     

P-Mannich Reaction on Wool Fibre for Activation in Dyeing

Abstract

Chemical modification of wool by means of dimethyl phoaphitc and D-glucose results in an increase in dye pickup, while colour and light fastness properties did not decrease, in fact some features bccpme more favourable. Our invesigations showed that increase in fibre diameter occurred. which could rise the rate of dye penetration. Amino acid analysis of the treated wool sample h w e d a decrease in lysine and arginim content, which allows of supposing covalent bond formation betweecl dimcthyl phosphite, D-glucose and the amino and guanidino groups of wool.     

Wound healing improvement by curcumin‐loaded electrospun nanofibers and BFP‐MSCs as a bioactive dressing

Wound healing, one of the most complex processes of the body involving the cooperation of several important biomolecules and pathways, is one of the major therapeutic and economic issues in regenerative medicine. The present study aimed to introduce a novel electrospun curcumin (Cur)‐incorporated chitosan/polyvinyl alcohol/carbopol/polycaprolactone nanofibrous composite for concurrent delivery of the buccal fat pad‐derived mesenchymal stem cells (BFP‐MSCs) and Cur to a full‐thickness wound on the mouse model. Scaffolds were characterized structurally using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), fluorescence microscopy imaging and Fourier‐transform infrared spectroscopy, and toxicity of the scaffolds was also evaluated after BFP‐MSC seeding by SEM imaging and 3‐(4,5 dimethyiazol‐2‐1)‐2‐5‐diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. Then, its influence on the wound‐healing process was investigated as a wound dressing for a full‐thickness skin defect in mouse model. Results demonstrated that the designed composite scaffolds have the capability for cell seeding and support their growth and proliferation. Macroscopic and histopathological characteristics were evaluated at the end of the 7 and 14 days after surgery, and their results showed that our designed scaffold groups accelerated the wound‐healing process compared with the control group. Among those, scaffold/Cur, scaffold/Cur/BFP‐MSC and scaffold/BFP‐MSC groups demonstrated more wound repair efficacy. These results indicated that the combined grafts can be used to improve the wound‐healing process, and therefore, the electrospun nanofibers presented in this study, Cur and BFP‐MSC together, were demonstrated to have promising potential for wound‐dressing applications.     

O,N,N'-trialkylisoureas as mild activating reagents for N-acylsulfonamide anchors

[chemical reaction: see text]. Prior to detachment of compounds synthesized on sulfonamide based safety-catch linkers, the molecular anchor has to be activated. This is achieved by alkylation of the nitrogen atom of the N-acylsulfonamide using different established protocols. As an addition to the existing repertoire of activating reagents, we suggest the use of O,N,N'-trialkylisoureas. Besides the demonstration of the feasibility of these mild alkylating agents for this purpose, custom-tailored novel O,N,N'-trialkylisoureas prepared from electron-deficient alcohols are reported.     

Numerical implementation of the QMR algorithm by using discrete stochastic arithmetic

In each step of the quasi-minimal residual (QMR) method which uses a look-ahead variant of the nonsymmetric Lanczos process to generate basis vectors for the Krylov subspaces induced byA, it is necessary to decide whether to construct the Lanczos vectorsv _n +1 andw _n +1 as regular or inner vectors. For a regular step it is necessary thatD _k =W _k ^T V _k is nonsingular. Therefore, in the floating-point arithmetic, the smallest singular value of matrix D_k,σ _min (D _k ), is computed and an inner step is performed ifσ _min (D _k )<∈, where ∈ is a suitably chosen tolerance. In practice it is absolutely impossible to choose correctly the value of the tolerance ∈. The subject of this paper is to show how discrete stochastic arithmetic remedies the problem of this tolerance, as well as the problem of the other tolerances which are needed in the other checks of the QMR method with the estimation of the accuracy of some intermediate results. Numerical examples are used to show the good numerical properties.     

A natural-product-inspired photonic logic gate based on photoinduced electron-transfer-generated dual-channel fluorescence

[structure: see text] Modified 1-benzylisoquinoline N-oxides can operate as molecular logic gates. The combination of dual-channel fluorescence emissions and the preferred interaction for selected chemical inputs allows one to design multifunction and self-reprogrammable molecular logic gates.     

Three-dimensional dynamic Green’s functions for a multilayered transversely isotropic half-space

With the aid of a method of displacement potentials, an efficient and accurate analytical derivation of the three-dimensional dynamic Green’s functions for a transversely isotropic multilayered half-space is presented. Constituted by proper algebraic factorizations, a set of generalized transmission–reflection matrices and internal source fields that are free of any numerically unstable exponential terms are proposed for effective computations of the potential solution. Three-dimensional point-load Green’s functions for stresses and displacements are given, for the first time, in the complex-plane line-integral representations. The present formulations and solutions are analytically in exact agreement with the existing solutions given by Pak and Guzina (2002) for the isotropic case. For the numerical computation of the integrals, a robust and effective methodology which gives the necessary account of the presence of singularities including branch points and poles on the path of integration is laid out. A comparison with the existing numerical solutions for multilayered isotropic half-space is made to confirm the accuracy of the numerical solutions.