Thermodynamic properties of 1-nutyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride (C<Subscript>4</Subscript>mim[Cl]) ionic liquid

Thermodynamic properties of 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride (C₄mim[Cl]) ionic liquid were determined using thermogravimetric (TG) differential thermal analysis (DTA). A new method called DTA mass-difference baseline, was used to measure the heat capacity and enthalpy change of phase transformation of ionic liquid from DTA curves. Based on this, the changes in standard enthalpy, entropy, and Gibbs energy were determined. The results show that standard enthalpy and entropy changes of C₄mim[Cl] increase nonlinearly with increasing temperature, while the standard Gibbs energy change decreases nonlinearly with increasing temperature within the temperature range studied (298–453 K). The standard enthalpy of melting and enthalpy of vaporization were determined to be 0.93 and 11.07 kJ/mol, respectively.     

Soy protein concentrate and heated soy flours as protein sources in milk replacer for preruminant calves

Thirty-two male calves (8/treatment) in Trial 1 and 41 male and female calves (10 or 11/treatment) in Trial 2 were fed milk replacers containing 100% of the total protein from milk sources or 25% from milk and 75% from a soy product: soy protein concentrate; commercial heated (fully cooked) soy flour; or experimental soy flour for 6 wk. The experimental flour received moist heat sufficient to reduce trypsin inhibitor to 1 unit/mg. Calf performance improved with age on all diets. Growth, protein and dry matter digestibility, nitrogen retention, and morphology of the intestinal mucosa of calves on the all milk-protein diet were superior to those of calves on diets containing a soy product. All soy-fed groups had a humoral but no cell-mediated immune reaction to soy proteins. Soy protein concentrate and the experimental heated soy flour were superior to the commercial heated soy flour as protein sources for milk replacer.     

Modulatory Effects of Biosynthesized Gold Nanoparticles Conjugated with Curcumin and Paclitaxel on Tumorigenesis and Metastatic Pathways—In Vitro and In Vivo Studies

Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women globally, and diagnosing it early and finding potential drug candidates against multi-drug resistant metastatic breast cancers provide the possibilities of better treatment and extending life. Methods: The current study aimed to evaluate the synergistic anti-metastatic activity of Curcumin (Cur) and Paclitaxel (Pacli) individually, the combination of Curcumin–Paclitaxel (CP), and also in conjugation with gold nanoparticles (AuNP–Curcumin (Au-C), AuNP–Paclitaxel (Au-P), and AuNP–Curcumin–Paclitaxel (Au-CP)) in various in vitro and in vivo models. Results: The results from combination treatments of CP and Au-CP demonstrated excellent synergistic cytotoxic effects in triple-negative breast cancer cell lines (MDA MB 231 and 4T1) in in vitro and in vivo mouse models. Detailed mechanistic studies were performed that reveal that the anti-cancer effects were associated with the downregulation of the expression of VEGF, CYCLIN-D1, and STAT-3 genes and upregulation of the apoptotic Caspase-9 gene. The group of mice that received CP combination therapy (with and without gold nanoparticles) showed a significant reduction in the size of tumor when compared to the Pacli alone treatment and control groups. Conclusions: Together, the results suggest that the delivery of gold conjugated Au-CP formulations may help in modulating the outcomes of chemotherapy. The present study is well supported with observations from cell-based assays, molecular and histopathological analyses.     

Estimation of temperature dependent heat transfer coefficient in a vertical rectangular fin using liquid crystal thermography

This paper presents a methodology for the estimation of temperature dependent heat transfer coefficient for a vertical rectangular fin by using the inverse heat transfer method with Liquid crystal thermography (LCT) data. Steady state, laminar natural convection experiments have been done on a vertical rectangular fin of size 150 × 250 × 4, (L × w × t, all dimensions are in mm). The variation of heat transfer coefficient is considered as a power law function of temperature excess (h = a_oθ^b) and is derived from the basic Nusselt number equation used for laminar natural convection, Nu = aRa^b. With this functional form, the one dimensional fin equation in finite difference form is repeatedly solved using the Gauss–Seidel iterative method. Treating this as a one parameter estimation in ‘a’ the sum of the squares of the difference between the simulated and Thermochromic Liquid Crystal (TLC) measured temperatures is minimized with the Golden section search algorithm to retrieve ‘a’. Estimate of ‘a’ and the accompanying uncertainties are first reported for synthetically generated temperature distribution for assumed values of ‘a’. The effect of noise on the estimate of ‘a’ is discussed. This is followed by retrievals with experimentally obtained TLC temperature distribution for a range of heat inputs to the fin base. The required temperature distributions for accomplishing the retrievals over the surface are obtained using calibrated R40C5W Thermochromic Liquid Crystal (TLC) sheets. As an additional proof of the accuracy of the method, the retrieved value of ‘a’ is used to simulate the temperature distribution in the fin which is then compared with the actual TLC measured temperature distribution.     

Problems Involved in Using Improper Calibration CRMs in Geochemical Analyses: A Case Study on Mafic Rocks of Boggulakonda Pluton, East of Cuddapah Basin, India

The performance and response of two commonly used certified reference materials (CRMs) for mafic rocks MRG-1 (CANMET, Canada) and JGb-1 (Geological Survey of Japan), both gabbroic in composition, are evaluated for a set of mafic plutonic rocks (gabbros) from Boggulakonda (BK) occurring to the east of Proterozoic Cuddapah Basin, South India. In this study, quadrupole-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry was used to generate trace and rare earth element (REE) data using MRG-1 and JGb-1 as calibration standards separately for a comparative study. It is found that the two CRMs show highly variable major, minor and trace element compositions except ΣREE. When used for BK gabbros, JGb-1 has yielded better results than MRG-1 with respect to trace elements (HFS elements Nb and Ta in specific), whereas a good agreement was observed between both CRMs for REE concentrations when compared with certified data. The Nb–Ta element distribution patterns for BK gabbros in the spidergrams plotted using JGb-1 as CRM show relatively prominent and pronounced negatively spiking anomalies with reference to Th, whereas using MRG-1 as calibration CRM yielded unresolved and unclear Nb–Ta anomalies in the present study. The geochemistry (major, minor and trace) of MRG-1 is different when compared to that of JGb-1. Probably this is reason for the disparity in the results obtained by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry on mafic plutonic rocks. The study conducted on the BK gabbros, reveals better and reliable results using JGb-1 as CRM. This study also reveals the importance of using proper CRM for calibration having closely matching trace and REE concentrations in addition to major and minor elements, for obtaining reliable data in geological samples.     

Chemo-Enzymatic Synthesis and Antimicrobial Evaluation of Alkyloxy Propanol Amine-Based Cationic Ether Lipids

The present study involved the synthesis and antimicrobial evaluation of alkyloxy propanol amine-based cationic lipids N,N-dimethyl-1-octadecylamino-3-alkyloxy-2-propanol (series A, 7a–e) and N-methyl-N,N-di-(2-hydroxy-3-alkyloxy-2 propyl) octadecylamine (series B, 9a–e) and their acetylated derivatives (8a–e and 10a–e). A simple three-step chemo-enzymatic approach was employed for the synthesis of 7a–e and 9a–e in 71–80 and 67–88 % yields, respectively. The first step involved the synthesis of a series of glycidyl ethers from a series of alcohols (C₄, C₈, C₁₀, C₁₂, C₁₄) which were opened in the second step with octadecylamine to obtain 1-octadecylamino-3-alkyloxy-2 propanol (5a–e) and N,N-di-(2-hydroxy-3-alkyloxypropyl) octadecylamine (6a–e). In the third step, alkyloxy propanolamines (5a–e, 6a–e) were quaternized using methyl iodide to yield quaternized ammonium salts. The quaternized ammonium salts were enzymatically acetylated using Candida antarctica lipase-B based immobilized enzyme Novozym 435 to obtain their acetylated derivatives. The quaternized salts as well as their acetylated derivatives were evaluated for antibacterial and antifungal properties. The title compounds were found to possess moderate to good antibacterial activities against all the studied bacterial strains namely, Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella aerogenes compared to streptomycin and cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB). The title compounds exhibited relatively good antifungal activities against Candida albicans and no significant activities against other fungal strains namely, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Rhizopus oryzae and Aspergillus niger when compared to amphotericin B and CTAB.     

Antioxidant activity of fresh and dry fruits commonly consumed in India

Epidemiological studies from other parts of the world indicate that increased consumption of fruits and vegetables are associated with lower risk of chronic degenerative diseases. Fruits are an important component of Indian diets. Studies indicate that fruits and vegetables are rich sources of phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity (AOA). Present study was taken up to determine the AOA and phenolic content of fresh and dry fruits commonly consumed in India by two different (radical scavenging) methods and relate it to their total phenolic content (TPC) for the first time. Fourteen commonly consumed fresh fruits and ten dry fruits were studied. AOA and TPC contents of both fresh and dry fruits showed marked variation. Correlation analysis between the TPC and AOA as assessed by the two methods showed that phenolics may contribute maximally to the ABTS (r = 0.84) and to lesser extent to DPPH (r = 0.77) in fresh fruits, where as in dry fruits they correlated well to DPPH activity (r = 0.97) and to a lesser extent to FRAP (r = 0.87). In general, the results indicate that majority of the fresh and dry fruits studied are rich in phenolic antioxidants with potent free radical scavenging activity imply their importance to human health.     

Structural,optical and magnetic properties of nanocrystalline Zn0.9Co0.1O-based diluted magnetic semiconductors

With a view to understand the influence of nano size on various properties of cobalt-doped ZnO-based diluted magnetic semiconductors, a series of materials were prepared by the citrate gel route. The phase and morphology studies have been carried out by X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy, respectively. All the samples of the present investigation are found to have hexagonal wurtzite structure and crystallite sizes are found to vary from 25 nm to 65 nm. From the optical absorption measurements it has been observed that upon doping with cobalt, the energy band gap is found to shift towards lower energy side (red shift) while it shifts towards higher energy side (blue shift) when the crystallite size is increased continuously. It has been observed from the XPS results that oxidation state of Cobalt is +2 and that the difference in binding energies of Co 2p_3/2 and Co 2p_1/2 is found to increase continuously with increasing crystallite size. Finally, all the samples are found to exhibit room temperature ferromagnetism and the specific magnetization decreases with increasing crystallite size.     

Interference effects from coexisting fatty acids on elaidic acid separation by fractionating crystallization: A model study

A multi‐stage temperature‐programmed fractionating crystallization process was carried out to examine the effects of the presence of stearic acid (SA), oleic acid (OA), and linoleic acid (LA) on the separation of elaidic acid (EA). The results showed that the efficiency of fractionating crystallization of EA depended largely on the crystallization temperature, initial concentration of EA and presence of SA. The content of SA plays very important role for the fractionating performance. It was a characteristic observation that only when SA <2%, substantial crystallization of EA (>50% in stepwise crystal fractions) were obtained regardless of the initial concentration of SA. In general, SA induced crystallization of EA in earlier stage but delayed further crystallization of EA in later stage; the crystallization of EA was independent from co‐existing OA and LA. After reduction of EA content in solution to certain extent (7–10%, at ?20°C), further reduction of EA content requires much lower crystallization temperatures (trans‐fatty acids (TFA) from partially hydrogenated soybean oil (PHSO) is of high commercial interest. One of the strategies is to selectively release TFAs as free fatty acids from PHSO enzymatically. However, all commercially available enzymes are far away from qualified to selectively release TFAs, where there are always substantial non‐trans FAs hydrolyzed simultaneously. Therefore, developing post‐processing technology is requisite in order to recover those non‐trans fatty acids. Thus, this model system was designed based on FA composition characteristic of PHSO, which aimed to acquire some basic data and experience that lack in available literatures, so as to serve designing efficient practical process for removing trans‐fatty acid moieties from PHSO. The results from this work may be of general value to achieve a better understanding of fractionating crystallization behaviors of different FAs, relationship with individual molecular feature and property, and their interference effects, which might contribute to the design of practically feasible protocol to remove TFAs from PHSO and recover non‐trans FAs at the same time.