The Webster scalar curvature problem on the three dimensional CR manifolds

In this paper, we prove some existence results for the Webster scalar curvature problem on the three dimensional CR compact manifolds locally conformally CR equivalent to the unit sphere S³ of C². Our methods are based on the techniques related to the theory of critical points at infinity.     

Phytochemical Characterization,Antioxidant and Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Cleome arabica L. Fruits Extract against Formalin Induced Chronic Inflammation in Female Wistar Rat: Biochemical,Histological, and In Silico Studies

In recent decades, the use of herbs and plants has been of great interest, as they have been the sources of natural products, commonly named as bioactive compounds. In specific, the natural compounds from the Capparaceae family which has been proved to have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial and anti-carcinogenic activities, by several studies. Cleome arabica L. (CA) specie is the most used medicinal plants in Tunisia and elsewhere in North African countries for treatment of various diseases including diabetes, rheumatism, inflammation, cancer, and digestive disorders. The current work was undertaken to estimate the total phenolic, flavonoid and condensed tannin contents, to identify and quantify the polyphenolic compounds, and to evaluate the antioxidant and the anti-inflammatory proprieties of CA fruits extract against formalin induced chronic inflammation in Female Wistar rats. In fact, the antioxidant activity was tested by Diphenyl-1-Picrylhydrazyl free radical scavenging (DPPH), Ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and Nitric Oxide radical (NO·). Anti-inflammatory effect of fruits extract was examined using formalin (2%) induced paw edema in rats. Molecular docking tools were used to investigate the interaction of some compounds from CA fruits extract with the cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) target protein. Our results showed that, the total phenolic, flavonoid and tannins contents, which were assessed by the Folin-Ciocalteu, Quercetin, and Catechin methods, respectively, were 230.22 mg gallic acid equivalent/g dry weight (mg GAE/g DW), 55.08 mg quercetin equivalent/g dry weight (QE/g DW) and 15.17 mg catechin equivalents/g dry weight (CatE/g DW), respectively. HPLC analysis revealed the presence of five polyphenolic compounds whose catechin was found to be the most abundant compounds. The antioxidant activity of extract was quantified by DPPH, FRAP and NO· tests and IC₅₀ reached the values of 3.346 mg/mL, 2.306 and 0.023 mg/mL, respectively. Cleome fruits ameliorated the histological integrity of the skin and alleviated the disruptions in hematological parameters (WBC, LYM, RBC, and HGB), inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α), C-reactive protein, and some oxidative stress markers (TBARS (−49%) and AOPP (−42%) levels, SOD (+33%) and GPx (+75%) activities, and GSH (+49%) content) induced by formalin injection. Moreover, the in-silico investigation had shown that CA fruits extract compounds have a stronger interaction with COX-2 active site, more than the reference drug “indomethacin” (two H-bonds). Our research gives pharmacological backing to the healthcare utilization of Cleome plant in the treatment of inflammatory diseases and oxidative harm.     

Stereoselective synthesis of erythro-β-chloroamines and their conversion into functionalized trans-oxazolidin-2-ones

New erythro-β-chloroamines were synthesized by a mild and efficient stereoselective chlorination of unprotected amino alcohol diesters. These products are shown to be excellent building blocks for the synthesis of new substituted trans-oxazolidin-2-ones.     

Isolation and structure determination of a novel furanic ester from the aerial part of Prasium majus

The aerial part of Prasium majus provided a new furanic ester, 2-2-[(5-formyl-6[(5-formylfuran-2-yl)methoxy] succinic acid dimethyl ester, (+/-)-hiziprafuran. Its structure was principally established by one- and two-dimensional NMR spectroscopy.     

Experimental Analysis of Punch-Through Conditions in Power P-I- N Diodes

Commercial power diodes are optimized to feature punch-through behavior. However, a tradeoff between the width and the doping level of the diode epitaxial layer leads to various levels of optimization. For a given breakdown voltage, a shorter epitaxial layer width leads to better transient performances. Device datasheets do not cover this issue and a simple experimental setup is presented to assess the optimization conditions inside the diode epitaxial layer. Three commercial devices are tested and experimental results are confronted to device simulations. A good agreement is found     

Transformations de N-acylaziridines catalysées par des supports à base de silice et d’alumine : une élucidation mécanistique

The silica gel, neutral alumina and acid activated clays transform the N-acyl-2,2-dimethylaziridines 1 into a mixture of N-methallylamides 2, oxazolines 3 and amidoalcohols 4. The reaction of N-benzoyl-2,2-dimethylaziridine with benzylcyanid anion leads to a mixture of amidopyrroline 5 and iminopyrrolidine 6. The product 5 was converted into its tautomer 6 by chromatogaphy on silica gel. Ionic mechanisms were then proposed to explain the formation of products 2–6 resulting from the regioselective ring opening on the more substituted C2 carbon side.     

Bayesian Unsupervised Learning for Source Separation with Mixture of Gaussians Prior

This paper considers the problem of source separation in the case of noisy instantaneous mixtures. In a previous work [1], sources have been modeled by a mixture of Gaussians leading to an hierarchical Bayesian model by considering the labels of the mixture as i.i.d hidden variables. We extend this modelization to incorporate a Markovian structure for the labels. This extension is important for practical applications which are abundant: unsupervised classification and segmentation, pattern recognition and speech signal processing. In order to estimate the mixing matrix and the a priori model parameters, we consider observations as incomplete data. The missing data are sources and labels: sources are missing data for observations and labels are missing data for incomplete missing sources. This hierarchical modelization leads to specific restoration maximization type algorithms. Restoration step can be held in three different manners: (i) Complete likelihood is estimated by its conditional expectation. This leads to the EM (expectation-maximization) algorithm [2], (ii) Missing data are estimated by their maximum a posteriori. This leads to JMAP (Joint maximum a posteriori) algorithm [3], (iii) Missing data are sampled from their a posteriori distributions. This leads to the SEM (stochastic EM) algorithm [4]. A Gibbs sampling scheme is implemented to generate missing data. We have also introduced a relaxation strategy into these algorithms to reduce the computational cost which is due to the exponential influence of the number of source components and the number of the mixture Gaussian components.     

Antioxidant Activity of Polyphenols,from Mauritia flexuosa (Aguaje), Based on Controlled Dehydration

Plant polyphenols offer several benefits for the prevention of diverse illnesses. Fruit’s edible and inedible parts (pulp, seeds, peels, stems, flowers) are important sources of polyphenols. Different industrial processes for fruit treatment and commercialization affect the total polyphenol content (TPC), and probably the biological activity. The purpose of the present work was to determine the TPC and antioxidant activity (by DPPH) of polyphenols extracted from the pulp and seeds of Mauritia flexuosa (aguaje), in fresh and dehydrated forms, in order to determine the possible connection with the quantity of polyphenols and their specific antioxidant activity. The highest phenolic content for M. flexuosa seeds in fresh form (non-dehydrated) was 270.75 mg GAE/100 g with a 96-h extraction. With respect to the dehydrated samples, the best yield was quantified in the 96-h dehydrated seed sample. For all pulp and seeds, dehydrated for 24, 48, and 96 h, TPC showed a slightly decreasing pattern. The DPPH results were the highest in the 96-h dehydrated samples and the differences among all dehydrated pulp and seed samples were minimal. More studies testing the presence of other antioxidant components could help in understanding the detailed antioxidant activity, and related more to the specific action, rather than only total polyphenol content.