Permanganate oxidation of sulfur compounds to prevent poisoning of Pd catalysts in water treatment processes

The practical application of Pd-catalyzed water treatment processes is impeded by catalyst poisoning by reduced sulfur compounds (RSCs). In this study, the potential of permanganate as a selective oxidant for the removal of microbially generated RSCs in water and as a regeneration agent for S-poisoned catalysts was evaluated. Hydrodechlorination using Pd/Al2O3 was carried out as a probe reaction in permanganate-pretreated water. The activity of the Pd catalysts in the successfully pretreated reaction medium was similar to that in deionized water. The catalyst showed no deactivation behavior in the presence of permanganate at a concentration level < or = 0.07 mM. With a residual oxidant concentration of > or = 0.08 mM, a significant but temporary inhibition of the catalytic dechlorination was observed. Unprotected Pd/Al2O3, which had been completely poisoned by sulfide, was reactivated by a combined treatment with permanganate and hydrazine. However, the anthropogenic water pollutants thiophene and carbon disulfide were resistant against permanganate. Together with the preoxidation of catalyst poisons, hydrophobic protection of the catalysts was studied. Pd/zeolite and various hydrophobically coated catalysts showed a higher stability against ionic poisons and permanganate than the uncoated catalyst. By means of a combination of oxidative water pretreatment and hydrophobic catalyst protection, we provide a new tool to harness the potential of Pd-catalyzed hydrodehalogenation for the treatment of real waters.     

Relief from job stressors and burnout: Reserve service as a respite.

To reveal the ameliorative impact of being away from job stressors on burnout, we compared 81 men who were called for active reserve service with 81 matched controls in the same company who were not called during the same period. Each reservist and his control completed questionnaires shortly before the reservist left work for a stint of service and immediately on his return. Analysis of variance detected a significant decline in job stress and burnout among those who served and no change among the control participants. Among those who served, quality of reserve service and degree of psychological detachment from work interacted in moderating the respite effects; the greater the detachment, the stronger the effect positive reserve service experience had in relieving reservists from stress and burnout. Reserve service is discussed as a special case of stress-relieving get-away from work that may be experienced as an ameliorative respite akin to vacation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rational Design and Synthesis of Selective PRMT4 Inhibitors: A New Chemotype for Development of Cancer Therapeutics**

Protein arginine N-methyl transferase 4 (PRMT4) asymmetrically dimethylates the arginine residues of histone H3 and nonhistone proteins. The overexpression of PRMT4 in several cancers has stimulated interest in the discovery of inhibitors as biological tools and, potentially, therapeutics. Although several PRMT4 inhibitors have been reported, most display poor selectivity against other members of the PRMT family of methyl transferases. Herein, we report the structure-based design of a new class of alanine-containing 3-arylindoles as potent and selective PRMT4 inhibitors, and describe key structure–activity relationships for this class of compounds.     

Changes in growth kinetics and motility characteristics of Escherichia coli in the presence of sulphoraphane isolated from broccoli seed meal

In this investigation, the purified sulphoraphane from broccoli seed meal was evaluated in a range of 5–400 μg mL⁻¹ against Escherichia coli. The results showed that levels above 200 μg mL⁻¹ can inhibit 100% growth of 10⁶ CFU mL⁻¹ up to 5 h and cause a deformation of sigmoid behaviour in the growth kinetics, and even the bacterial population is reduced. On the other hand, low sulphoraphane levels such as 5–25 μg mL⁻¹ also have effects on the bacterium, such as the decrease in the maximum specific growth rate and the loss of ability to adjust to a growth model when maintained in isothermal conditions. In addition, sulphoraphane has an effect on swimming motility and swarming motility in semi-solid medium. The interaction of natural sulphoraphane–E. coli and the effect in the short periods can draw attention in research on food science and technology.     

Click through Rate Effectiveness Prediction on Mobile Ads Using Extreme Gradient Boosting

Online advertisements have a significant influence over the success or failure of your business. Therefore, it is important to somehow measure the impact of your advertisement before uploading it online, and this is can be done by calculating the Click Through Rate (CTR). Unfortunately, this method is not eco-friendly, since you have to gather the clicks from users then compute the CTR. This is where CTR prediction come in handy. Advertisement CTR prediction relies on the users’ log regarding click information data. Accurate prediction of CTR is a challenging and critical process for e-advertising platforms these days. CTR prediction uses machine learning techniques to determine how much the online advertisement has been clicked by a potential client: The more clicks, the more successful the ad is. In this study we develop a machine learning based click through rate prediction model. The proposed study defines a model that generates accurate results with low computational power consumption. We used four classification techniques, namely K Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Logistic Regression, Random Forest, and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost). The study was performed on the Click-Through Rate Prediction Competition Dataset. It is a click-through data that is ordered chronologically and was collected over 10 days. Experimental results reveal that XGBoost produced ROC-AUC of 0.76 with reduced number of features.     

Pathways of lean manufacturing in wood and furniture industries: a bibliometric and systematic review

European Journal of Wood and Wood Products - As wood and furniture industries have little knowledge of the implementation of lean manufacturing particularly in emerging economies, the purpose of...     

Eilatin Ru(II) complexes display anti-HIV activity and enantiomeric diversity in the binding of RNA

Eilatin-containing octahedral ruthenium complexes inhibit HIV-1 replication in CD4+ HeLa cells and in human peripheral blood monocytes with IC(50) values of approximately 1 microM. Similar metal complexes that lack eilatin display 15-100-fold lower anti-HIV activities. [Ru(bpy)(2)"pre-eilatin"](2+), a complex that contains a nonplanar analogue of eilatin, shows significantly lower nucleic acid binding and lower anti-HIV activity than eilatin complexes. This result indicates that the extended planar surface presented by eilatin is important for both activities. Rev peptide and ethidium bromide displacement assays are used to probe the nucleic acid affinity and specificity of Lambda- and Delta-[Ru(bpy)(2)eilatin](2+). Two HIV-1 RNA sites are compared and a significant binding preference for the Rev response element over the transactivation response region is found. Simple DNA duplexes show a consistent selectivity for Lambda-[Ru(bpy)(2)eilatin](2+) compared to Delta-[Ru(bpy)(2)eilatin](2+), while RNAs show more diverse enantiomeric selectivities.     

Micellization and Interfacial Interaction Behaviors of Gemini Cationic Surfactants–CTAB Mixed Surfactant Systems

The interfacial and micellization behaviors of binary mixtures of two gemini cationic surfactants and conventional the cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide surfactant were studied at various molar ratios. From the equilibrium surface tension measurements, the critical micelle concentrations (CMC) data were obtained as functions of the composition. Values of the CMC were analyzed according to the regular solution model developed by Rubingh for mixed micelles. Two interaction parameters were obtained for each system, the interaction at the interface, and in the micellar phase. The results showed that micellization and adsorption properties of the studied mixed systems depend on the spacer chain lengths of the gemini surfactants and their ratio in the mixed systems.