A Fast HPLC Method for Determination of Vitamin E Acetate in Dietary Supplements Using Monolithic Column

A simple and fast high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method with rapid separation on monolithic column has been developed for quantitative determination of vitamin E acetate in dietary supplements. Commercial samples of dietary supplements were extracted with 100 % methanol with the help of ultrasound bath. A 20-μL sample volume of the filtered solution was directly injected into the HPLC system. Separation of ballast matrix, vitamin E acetate, and internal standard cholecalciferol was performed on the monolithic column Chromolith Performance RP-18e column (100?×?4.6 mm) with mobile phase methanol/water (98:2, v/v) at a flow rate of 2.0 mL min^?1 and at temperature 30 °C. The detector was set at 290 nm. Under the optimum chromatographic conditions, standard calibration curve was measured with good linearity—correlation coefficient for vitamin E acetate (r?=?0.9992; n?=?6) between the peak areas and concentrations of vitamin E acetate. Accuracy of the method defined as a mean recovery was in the range 96.4–103.6 % for all dietary supplements. The intraday method precision was satisfactory and relative standard deviation of sample analysis including preparation and determination of different dietary supplements was in the range 1.1–3.6 %. The developed method has shown high sample throughput during sample preparation process and short time (3.5 min) of analysis.     

The Use of Explosive Energy for Joining Advanced High Strength Low Alloy Steels

This article deals with an alternative method of joining advanced steels for frame structures. These steels cannot be joined by a conventional process due to the impact of temperature on the base material. Therefore, a simple and cost-effective method of forming a high-strength joint, intended for advanced high-strength materials, was designed using explosive forming. One of its key advantages is that it preserves the microstructure of the high-strength material being joined. At the same time, the design of the joint allows it to undergo further plastic deformation if the yield stress is exceeded, thus preventing the step change in load-carrying capacity and the instability of the structure. The alternative joint was intended for materials with yield stress above 1000 MPa and elongation of 10%, under quasi-static conditions. However, the design is also suitable for materials with ultimate tensile strength higher than 2000 MPa. Testing of the load-carrying capacity of the joint in a mechanical testing shop showed that the larger the flow stress of the material, the higher the load-carrying capacity of the joint. The selected joint designs with good load-bearing capacity values were manufactured by forming using products of detonation of the SEMTEX industrial blasting explosive. In a compression test, the demonstration joints showed the axial load-bearing capacity of 200 kN with up to 20-mm displacement to failure.     

Modeling and simulation of the resource allocation process in abandwidth-on-demand satellite communications network

The authors describe the modeling and simulation of a frequency-division multiple-access (FDMA) satellite bandwidth-on-demand (BOD) service. The class of resource allocation processes to which the satellite BOD application belongs is identified and contrasted with more common resource allocation processes. Several unique features of BOD service complicate the performance specification, modeling, and analysis. The authors divide the modeling problem into three fundamental components: modeling the resource algorithm and modeling the processing of individual resource requests. These modeling components are illustrated with the satellite BOD application. In addition, simulation of the resource allocation requires three additional components: an easy-to-use user input interface, performance measures and statistics gathering, and presentation of simulation results (user output interface). The architecture of the simulation software (resource allocation analysis program, or RAAP) is presented in terms of these six components. To illustrate RAAP's capabilities, example simulation results are given     

ON THE LENGTH EFFECT OF THE HEAT DISPERSION PARAMETERS

Considerable attention has been paid to the dispersion of heat in fixed beds passed by a flowing gas. This is best documented by ample experimental evidence and correlations available in the literature. However, the results of individual studies differ often significantly. As a possible cause of the discrepancies have been put forth various experimental techniques and data processing methods (Gunn, 1970; Froment, 1972; Li and Finlayson, 1977), particularly the use of different mathematical models.

As a fact of considerable significance, however, remains the dependence of results on the geometry of the experiment. All parameters of the pseudohomogeneous one- and two-dimensional models have been found to depend on the length of the bed (Li and Finlayson, 1977; De Wasch and Froment, 1972; Bunell el al., 1949; Calderbank and Pogorski, 1957), while their values invariably decrease with the increasing length. In contrast, neither of the existing models predicts such a dependence, nor is there a satisfactory explanation for the phenomenon at hand.

The aim of this work has been to carry out experimental measurements of the effective radial thermal conductivity in a fixed bed passed by flowing air and to analyze in detail the length dependence of the results. The experiments consisted of measurement of the steady state outlet temperature profiles corresponding to a radially distributed inlet profile.     

Micromachined nanocalorimetric sensor for ultra-low-volume cell-based assays

Current strategies for cell-based screening generally focus on the development of highly specific assays, which require an understanding of the nature of the signaling molecules and cellular pathways involved. In contrast, changes in temperature of cells provides a measure of altered cellular metabolism that is not stimulus specific and hence could have widespread applications in cell-based screening of receptor agonists and antagonists, as well as in the assessment of toxicity of new lead compounds. Consequently, we have developed a micromachined nanocalorimetric biological sensor using a small number of isolated living cells integrated within a subnanoliter format, which is capable of detecting 13 nW of generated power from the cells, upon exposure to a chemical or pharmaceutical stimulus. The sensor comprises a 10-junction gold and nickel thermopile, integrated on a silicon chip which was back-etched to span a 800-nm-thick membrane of silicon nitride. The thin-film membrane, which supported the sensing junctions of the thermoelectric transducer, gave the system a temperature resolution of 0.125 mK, a low heat capacity of 1.2 nJ mK(-1), and a rapid (unfiltered) response time of 12 ms. The application of the system in ultra-low-volume cell-based assays could provide a rapid endogenous screen. It offers important additional advantages over existing methods in that it is generic in nature, it does not require the use of recombinant cell lines or of detailed assay development, and finally, it can enable the use of primary cell lines or tissue biopsies.     

Noise and transport characterisation of tantalum capacitors

A low frequency noise and charge carrier transport mechanisms were investigated on tantalum capacitors made by various producers. The model of Ta–Ta₂O₅–MnO₂ MIS structure was used to give physical interpretation of I–V characteristics in normal and reverse modes. The noise in time and frequency domain was examined and noise sources were identified. We evaluated correlation between leakage current and noise spectral density and discussed corresponding quality and reliability indicators.     

Recursive approximation by ARX model: A tool for grey box modelling

The presented procedure computes approximate probabilistic models of complex dynamic phenomena recursively with respect to an increasing amount of observed evidence. Measured, fictitious as well as simulated data can be used in combination for obtaining a reasonably conservative approximate model. Thus information from a number of sources can be systematically merged using a refinement of the recently proposed method of Bayesian pooling of imprecise opinions from a variety of experts. It can be applied recursively as the number of treated items grows. The procedure provides (i) a new tool needed for grey as well as black box modelling, (ii) a novel adaptation of probabilistic models and (iii) an approximation of a given model by a simpler one. The general procedure is applied to the autoregressive model with exogenous variables (AM). This example illustrates the adopted approach and conmbutes to the solution of the following tasks: (i) estimation of an appropriate model structure; (ii) incorporation of prior knowledge into the initial conditions of recursive least squares; (iii) construction of a reference for an advanced forgetting technique; (iv) approximation of a complex analytic/simulation model by an ARX model. The behaviour of the procedure is illustrated on typical examples.     

Anisotropic properties and structure of amorphous films of selenium

It is shown experimentally that anisotropic columnar inhomogeneous structures form in evaporated amorphous selenium films. The angle of orientation of the structures corresponds to the angle of incidence of the molecular flow. The diameter and density of inhomogeneities in the amorphous films, evaporated at an acute angle, changed by a factor of 30 with a change in the substrate temperature from 20 to 60°C, as a result of diffusion mass transfer of condensed material on the substrate.