Antioxidative and anticarcinogenic activities of methylpheophorbide a,isolated from wheat grass (Triticum aestivum Linn.)

Methylphophorbide a (MPa) has been isolated from the ethanol extract of the wheat grass plant. Its antioxidative efficacy is evaluated by hydroxyl radical scavenging activities and reducing capacity which are significantly up regulated in comparison with aqueous extract of the plant. The compound shows iron-binding capacity where the Fe²⁺ binds with MPa by two types of binding patterns with dissociation constants 157.17 and 27.89. It has antioxidative and cytotoxic effects on HeLa and Hep G2 cells. The cancerous cell survivability decreases with increasing concentration of MPa. These findings have provided evidence for the traditional use of the wheat grass plant in the treatment of cancers, oxidative stress and iron overloaded disorders.     

Excellent Performance of Few‐Layer Borocarbonitrides as Anode Materials in Lithium‐Ion Batteries

Borocarbonitrides (B_xC_yN_z) with a graphene‐like structure exhibit a remarkable high lithium cyclability and current rate capability. The electrochemical performance of the B_xC_yN_z materials, synthesized by using a simple solid‐state synthesis route based on urea, was strongly dependent on the composition and surface area. Among the three compositions studied, the carbon‐rich compound B_0.15C_0.73N_0.12 with the highest surface area showed an exceptional stability (over 100 cycles) and rate capability over widely varying current density values (0.05–1 A g^?1). B_0.15C_0.73N_0.12 has a very high specific capacity of 710 mA h g^?1 at 0.05 A g^?1. With the inclusion of a suitable additive in the electrolyte, the specific capacity improved drastically, recording an impressive value of nearly 900 mA h g^?1 at 0.05 A g^?1. It is believed that the solid–electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer at the interface of B_xC_yN_z and electrolyte also plays a crucial role in the performance of the B_xC_yN_z .     

The ball generated property in operator spaces

The Ball Generated Property (BGP) was introduced by Corson and Lindenstrauss and subsequently analysed in detail by Godefroy and Kalton. In this work, the (BGP) is studied in spaces of operators. It is shown that (BGP) is stable under c₀ and l_p-sums for 1 < p < ∞ and a characterization is provided for C(K, X)-spaces with (BGP). A similar characterization is obtained for L(X, C(K))-spaces. (BGP) is shown to be stable under injective tensor products.     

New flavonoid glycosides and other chemical constituents from Clerodendrum phlomidis leaves: isolation and characterisation

Phytochemical investigation of the plant Clerodendrum phlomidis Linn. F. (Lamiaceae) has now led to the isolation of two new flavonoid glycosides (1, 2) together with six known compounds identified as pectolinaringenin (3), pectolinaringenin-7-O-β-d-glucopyranoside (4), 24β-ethylcholesta-5,22E,25-triene-3β-ol (5), 24β-ethylcholesta-5,22E,25-triene-3β-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (6), (2S,3S,4R,10E)-2-[(2′R)-2′-hydroxytetracosanoylamino]-10-octadecene-1,3,4-triol (7) and andrographolide (8) mainly by spectroscopic analysis. Compounds 4 and 6–8 are reported for the first time from C. phlomidis.     

Chaogates: morphing logic gates that exploit dynamical patterns

Chaotic systems can yield a wide variety of patterns. Here we use this feature to generate all possible fundamental logic gate functions. This forms the basis of the design of a dynamical computing device, a chaogate, that can be rapidly morphed to become any desired logic gate. Here we review the basic concepts underlying this and present an extension of the formalism to include asymmetric logic functions.     

Under what kind of parametric fluctuations is spatiotemporal regularity the most robust?

It was observed that the spatiotemporal chaos in lattices of coupled chaotic maps was suppressed to a spatiotemporal fixed point when some fractions of the regular coupling connections were replaced by random links. Here we investigate the effects of different kinds of parametric fluctuations on the robustness of this spatiotemporal fixed point regime. In particular we study the spatiotemporal dynamics of the network with noisy interaction parameters, namely fluctuating fraction of random links and fluctuating coupling strengths. We consider three types of fluctuations: (i) noisy in time, but homogeneous in space; (ii) noisy in space, but fixed in time; (iii) noisy in both space and time. We find that the effect of different kinds of parametric noise on the dynamics is quite distinct: quenched spatial fluctuations are the most detrimental to spatiotemporal regularity; spatiotemporal fluctuations yield phenomena similar to that observed when parameters are held constant at the mean value, and interestingly, spatiotemporal regularity is most robust under spatially uniform temporal fluctuations, which in fact yields a larger fixed point range than that obtained under constant mean-value parameters.     

Nature of charge separation and recombination processes within an organic dyad having short spacer

With the help of electrochemical, steady state and time resolved fluorescence (fluorescence lifetimes by using time correlated single photon counting technique) and nanosecond laser flash photolysis methods, the nature of charge separation along with the energy wasting charge recombination processes within a short-chained organic dyad 1-(4-Bromo-phenyl)-3-(2-methoxy-naphthalen-1-yl)-propenone (MNBA) has been revealed. In MNBA, the donor 2-methoxynaphthalene (2MNT) is connected with the acceptor p-bromoacetophenone (PBA) by an unsaturated olefinic bond. Though in the ground state elongated type structure (E-form) is observable from NMR spectra but on photoexcitation, another conformers possibly of the nature of folded type isomeric species (termed as Z-isomer) were also apparent from time resolved fluorescence measurements. However, preponderance of elongated form in the excited singlet state has been established from this time resolved measurements. NMR study on photoirradiated sample and theoretical predictions from computations using CIS method with Lanl2DZ basis set also indicate in favor of the propositions made on the formations of the two possible conformers and the stability of elongated isomeric species in the electronic excited state from the experimental results. The energy wasting charge recombination rate, k_CR, determined from the transient absorption measurements by nanosecond laser flash photolysis (LFP) technique was found to be (k_CR, ∼1.9×10⁵ s⁻¹) significantly lower than the charge-separation rate, k_cs∼9.4×10⁷ s⁻¹, measured from the time resolved fluorescence. This observation demonstrates that MNBA may serve as an efficient candidate to construct artificial light energy conversion devices or components of molecular photovoltaic cells.     

Emergent Universe in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet Theory

In this work, Emergent Universe scenario has been developed in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet (EGB) theory. The universe is chosen as homogeneous and isotropic FRW model and the matter in the universe has two components—the first one is a perfect fluid with barotropic equation of state p=ω ρ (ω, a constant) and the other component is a real or phantom (or tachyonic) scalar field. Various possibilities for the existence of emergent scenario has been discussed and the results are compared with those in Einstein gravity.     

Steady state and time-resolved spectroscopic investigations on the photoreactions involved within the electronically excited electron acceptor 9-cyanoanthracene in presence of benzotriazole and benzimidazole donors

The electrochemical, “steady-state” and “time-resolved” spectroscopic investigations were made on the well-known electron acceptor 9-cyanoanthracene (CNA) when interacted with the electron donors benzotriazole (BZT) and benzimidazole (BMI) molecules. Though electrochemical measurements indicate the thermodynamical possibility of occurrences of photoinduced electron transfer reactions within these reacting systems in the lowest excited singlet state (S₁) of the acceptor CNA but the steady-state and time-resolved measurements clearly demonstrate only the triplet-initiated charge separation reactions. It was reported earlier that in the cases of disubstituted indole molecules the occurrences of photoinduced electron transfer reactions were apparent both in the excited singlet and triplet states of the acceptor 9-cyanoanthracene, but the similarly structured present donor molecules benzotriazole (and benzimidazole) behave differently from indoles. The weak ground state complex formations within the presently studied reacting systems appear to be responsible for the observed static quenching phenomena as evidenced from the time-resolved fluorescence studies. Time-resolved spectroscopic investigations demonstrate the formation of the ground state of the reacting components (donor and acceptor) through recombination of triplet ion-pairs via formations of contact neutral radical produced by H-abstraction mechanism.