Effect of chemical parameters on pyrene degradation in soil in a pulsed discharge plasma system

Degradation of pyrene in soil in a net-to-net pulsed discharge plasma (PDP) system was reviewed. Effect of main chemical parameters, including air flow rate, pyrene concentration, initial pH and soil moisture content on pyrene degradation was examined. The obtained results show that 87.9% of pyrene could be removed under the condition of 60 min reaction; increasing of air flow rate within 1 L min⁻¹ was favorable for degradation; pyrene removal was decreased with the increase of initial pyrene concentration; oxidation of pyrene was more evident in acidic soil; enhancement of soil moisture content has no benefit on pyrene degradation.     

不同加载方式下路堤沉降性状与预测模型研究

从考虑土体流变的本构关系出发 ,证明了瞬时加载、线性或者近似线性加载和分级加载情况下路堤沉降的性状 ,提出了从数学上能满足各自变形特征的预测模型 ,工程实例分析表明了在不同条件下采用不同模型的合理性和实用性     

用遗传算法拟合电力系统负荷短期预测的非线性模型

本文运用遗传算法，根据河北省１９８５—１９９０年春节期间每小时用电量的统计数字，建立了非线性回归模型（Ｇｏｍｐｅｒｔｄｚ），结果表明，遗传算法性能良好，可望成为电力系统各种非线性模型辨识的有效手段。     

具有离散参数齐次随机场的线性预测(V)

本文提出并研究下列四类线性预测问题：2（n0），6（n0），5（NO，n0）及3（N0，n0）．不仅求出了它们的预测误差，而且也求出了它们的预测值．因而不仅推广了而且也改进了[2－5]中的结果．本文还给出了场｛X（m，n）｝的一个新形式的表示式．     

The effect of lanthanide on the degradation of RB in nanocrystalline Ln/TiO2 aqueous solution

A series of Nd³⁺, Pr³⁺, Er³⁺, and Dy³⁺ (0.25–5 at.%) homogeneously doped nanocrystalline titanium dioxides (Ln/TiO₂) were prepared by an easy sol–gel technique, and the roles of lanthanide doping on the photocatalytic activity in the degradation of rhodamine B (RB) in aqueous solution were studied. Both the concentration of the lanthanide dopant and calcination temperature showed significant effect to the photodegradation of RB. The photocatalytic activity of pure titania was drastically decreased when calcination temperature was at 700 °C, while the high photocatalytic activity was still maintained for lanthanide-doped samples. HPLC-MS method was used to study the degradation process, and it is demonstrated that the degradation of RB catalyzed by Ln/TiO₂ was principally go through with a stepwise de-ethylation photochemical process.     

Peak recognition technique by a computer program copying the human judgement

Summary It is still difficult to determine peaks and peak boundaries properly, though peak recognition is very important for the precision of quantitative data. A new computer program overcomes these problems using a method which is adapted from human judgements. The algorithm was developed for HPLC but can also be used in other fields of analytical chemistry.     

Decomposition of 1-(ω-aminoalkanoyl)guanidines under alkaline conditions

The decomposition of some N^G-(ω-aminoalkanoyl)argininamides, which are key intermediates for the preparation of radiolabeled and fluorescent neuropeptide Y receptor ligands, prompted us to synthesize a small series of simple 1-(ω-aminoalkanoyl)guanidines, and to investigate these model compounds for stability in alkaline buffers. The degradation of acylguanidines was monitored by time resolved UV spectroscopy. The most labile compound, 1-(5-aminopentanoyl)guanidine, decomposed with a half life of 19 s to yield piperidin-2-one (pH 10.4 at 25 °C). In contrast the half life of 1-(6-aminohexanoyl)guanidine is 7.7 h, which is comparable to the hydrolysis of acetylguanidine (t_1/2 = 9.6 h) in alkaline solution.     

Evolutionary rate variation and RNA secondary structure prediction

Predicting RNA secondary structure using evolutionary history can be carried out by using an alignment of related RNA sequences with conserved structure. Accurately determining evolutionary substitution rates for base pairs and single stranded nucleotides is a concern for methods based on this type of approach. Determining these rates can be hard to do reliably without a large and accurate initial alignment, which ideally also has structural annotation. Hence, one must often apply rates extracted from other RNA families with trusted alignments and structures. Here, we investigate this problem by applying rates derived from tRNA and rRNA to the prediction of the much more rapidly evolving 5'-region of HIV-1. We find that the HIV-1 prediction is in agreement with experimental data, even though the relative evolutionary rate between A and G is significantly increased, both in stem and loop regions. In addition we obtained an alignment of the 5' HIV-1 region that is more consistent with the structure than that currently in the database. We added randomized noise to the original values of the rates to investigate the stability of predictions to rate matrix deviations. We find that changes within a fairly large range still produce reliable predictions and conclude that using rates from a limited set of RNA sequences is valid over a broader range of sequences.     

Kinetics of the degradation of polystyrene in supercritical acetone

The kinetic analysis of the degradation of polystyrene (PS) in supercritical acetone has been studied using the nonisothermal weight loss technique with heating rates of 3, 5 and 7 °C/min. The weight loss data according to degradation temperature have been analyzed using the integral method based on Arrhenius form to obtain the kinetic parameters such as apparent activation energy and overall reaction order. The kinetic parameters obtained from this work were also compared with those of the thermal degradation of PS in nitrogen atmosphere. From this work, it was found that the activation energies of PS degradation in supercritical acetone were 73.3-200.7 kJ/mol and lower than those of the thermal degradation in nitrogen atmosphere.     

Analysis of neem oils by LC–MS and degradation kinetics of azadirachtin-A in a controlled environment

Since it was first isolated, the oil extracted from seeds of neem (Azadirachtin indica A juss) has been extensively studied in terms of its efficacy as an insecticide. Several industrial formulations are produced as emulsifiable solutions containing a stated titer of the active ingredient azadirachtin-A (AZ-A). The work reported here is the characterization of a formulation of this insecticide marketed under the name of Neem-azal T/S and kinetic studies of the major active ingredient of this formulation. We initially performed liquid–liquid extraction to isolate the neem oil from other ingredients in the commercial mixture. This was followed by a purification using flash chromatography and semi-preparative chromatography, leading to ¹³C NMR identification of structures such as azadirachtin-A, azadirachtin-B, and azadirachtin-H. The neem extract was also characterized by HPLC–MS using two ionization sources, APCI (atmospheric pressure chemical ionization) and ESI (electrospray ionization) in positive and negative ion modes of detection. This led to the identification of other compounds present in the extract—azadirachtin-D, azadirachtin-I, deacetylnimbin, deacetylsalannin, nimbin, and salannin. The comparative study of data gathered by use of the two ionization sources is discussed and shows that the ESI source enables the largest number of structures to be identified. In a second part, kinetic changes in the main product (AZ-A) were studied under precise conditions of pH (2, 4, 6, and 8), temperature (40 to 70 °C), and light (UV, dark room and in daylight). This enabled us to determine the degradation kinetics of the product (AZ-A) over time. The activation energy of the molecule (75±9 kJ mol^–1) was determined by examining thermal stability in the range 40 to 70 °C. The degradation products of this compound were identified by use of HPLC–MS and HPLC–MS–MS. The results enabled proposal of a chemical degradation reaction route for AZ-A under different conditions of pH and temperature. The data show that at room temperature and pH between 4 and 5 the product degrades into two preferential forms that are hydrolyzed to a single product over time and as a function of pH change.