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Lignin is one of main components of lignocellulosic along with cellulose and hemicellulose. It is a by-product of the paper and pulp industry, and has aromatic backbones making them an ideal renewable feedstock of aromatic compounds for a range of applications. Catalytic conversion of lignin from Earleaf Acacia tree was performed using high pressure/temperature reactor with Ru/C catalyst and protic solvents. The results showed that the conversion of lignin depends on the solvent polarity of protic solvents, and Ru/C catalyst enhanced the lignin conversion. Phenolic compounds are the main components of lignin conversion. Those compounds can be applied as a basement for bulk chemical and fuels.

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) can determine mechanical properties, associated with surface topography and structure, of a material at the nanoscale. Force–indentation curves that depict the deformation of a target specimen as a function of an applied force are widely used to determine the elastic modulus of a material based on a contact model. However, a hysteresis may arise due to friction between the AFM tip and a specimen. Consequently, the normal force detected using a photodetector during extension and retraction could be underestimated and overestimated, respectively, and the extension/retraction data could result in a significant difference in the elastic modulus measurement result. In this study, elastic modulus and friction coefficient values were determined based on an in situ theoretical model that compensated for the effect of friction on force–indentation data. It validated the proposed model using three different polymer specimens and colloidal-tipped probes for the force–indentation curve and friction loop measurements. This research could contribute to the accurate measurement of mechanical properties using AFM by enhancing the interpretation of force–indentation curves with friction-induced hysteresis. Furthermore, the proposed approach may be useful for analyzing in situ relationships between mechanical and frictional properties from a fundamental tribological perspective.

The electrolysis of water is popular both as lab work and as a demonstration. In this activity, the electrolysis of water in the presence of a pH indicator is used to produce text and symbols. This report describes the design of an environmentally friendly setup of a writing board utilizing the electrolysis of water in a hydrogel environment. The activity can be performed by only using chemicals and materials that are easily accessible to everyone, with no special permit needed. The writing board has been developed mainly as an outreach activity for our faculty and has been assessed during visits from upper secondary school students.

Introduction Koopman operator theory and the Hankel alternative view of the Koopman (HAVOK) model have been widely used to investigate the chaotic dynamics in complex systems. Although the statistics of intermittent dynamics have been evaluated in the HAVOK model, they are not adequate to characterize intermittent forcing. We proposed the Koopman spectral analysis method to characterize the intermittent transition between apeanic and non-apneaic episodes to predict impending OSA episodes. Methods Apnea-ECG Database from Physionet.org was selected to investigate the nonlinear intermittent behaviors of OSA disorder. The data set has 70 records of OSA patients, and the recordings vary from 7 hours to nearly 10 hours each. Each recording consists of a continuous digitized ECG signal and apnea annotations. First, the eigen time-delay coordinates were reconstructed from the heart rate variability (HRV) features. Next, the last eigen time-delay coordinate was modeled as an intermittent forcing component during apneic episodes. Finally, the forcing statistics in OSA were estimated to characterize the intermittency of the pathophysiological process. Results The statistics of the forcing in OSA demonstrated the fat-tailed distribution of the intermittent forcing of the underlying OSA pathophysiological process. The pooled means and standard deviations of the burst duration and the inter-burst duration across OSA patients were also calculated to be 1.73±0.26 minutes and 11.71±2.69 minutes. Scalogram amplitude and spectral decomposition of the wavelet transform exhibited various predominant frequencies and dynamics modes associated with apneic events. Conclusion We have reported the data-driven HAVOK model to obtain an intermittently forced linear system of chaos for the OSA pathophysiological processes The proposed method has been validated on 70 records of OSA patients from Apnea-ECG database. The forcing signal can predict the intermittent transient events, such as the transition from normal to apneic episodes in OSA case. Support (if any) Huynh PK, Setty AR, Le TB, Le TQ. A noise-robust Koopman spectral analysis of an intermittent dynamics method for complex systems: a case study in pathophysiological processes of obstructive sleep apnea. IISE Transactions on Healthcare Systems Engineering. 2022 Nov 1:1-6.

A novel conjugation of guar gum with xanthate groups via facile aqueous xanthation reaction has been reported. Density of grafted xanthate on guar gum product (GG-X) is as high as 4.4%, thus GG-X is conceivably characterized and confirmed by various spectrometric, electrochemical, thermogravimetric, and microscopic methods. Complexation of GG-X with numerous borderline and soft metal ions (e.g. Fe

Data collected from multiple sources (e.g., COVID-19 transmission databases, health surveys/questionnaires, U.S. Fig. 3. Response surfaces of

Electronic tongues (e-tongues) have been broadly employed in monitoring the quality of food, beverage, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical products, and in diagnosis of diseases, as the e-tongues can discriminate samples of high complexity, reduce interference of the matrix, offer rapid response. Compared to other analytical approaches using expensive and complex instrumentation as well as required sample preparation, the e-tongue is non-destructive, miniaturizable and on-site method with little or no preparation of samples. Even though e-tongues are successfully commercialized, their application in cancer diagnosis from urine samples is underestimated. In this review, we would like to highlight the various analytical techniques such as Raman spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, and electrochemical methods (potentiometry and voltammetry) used as e-tongues for urine analysis towards non-invasive cancer diagnosis. Besides, different machine learning approaches, for instance, supervised and unsupervised learning algorithms are introduced to analyze extracted chemical data. Finally, capabilities of e-tongues in distinguishing between patients diagnosed with cancer and healthy controls are highlighted.

Condensed lignin is an undesired byproduct that has detrimental effects in cellulose pulping processes, increasing the consumption of bleaching chemicals and altering the properties of main products. A simple method for quantification of condensed lignin could greatly improve the performance and economy of pulping mills. In this work, a chemical sensing material based on a molecularly imprinted conducting polymer was synthesized by using a marker of condensed lignin as template molecule. Molecular modeling was used as an essential tool to understand and optimize the complexation of the functional monomers with the template in order to improve the synthesis strategy. The imprinted polymer was synthesized by co-electropolymerization of 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) and 3-acetic acid thiophene (AAT) in presence of 2,2’-methylenebis(2-methoxy-4-methylphenol) as template, and studied by cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The anodic peak current at +0.88 V (vs. Ag/AgCl/KCl 3 M) in the cyclic voltammograms of the imprinted polymer sensor was used to detect the lignin marker dissolved in pure solvents at concentrations ranging from 1 × 10−6 to 1 × 10−2 M.

Between-session reliability of electromyographic data is important for confidence in interpreting the role of muscles in functional tasks but critical if these data are to be compared before and after an intervention that seeks to change pathological patterns of muscle activity. The gluteus medius (GMed) and minimus (GMin) are known to have functionally discrete segments that are highly active during stance phase of gait and stepping tasks. This study measured the between-session reliability of activity patterns, mean amplitudes and time to peak (TTP) activity of these muscle segments. Intramuscular electrodes were placed in 3 segments of GMed and 2 segments of GMin in 10 healthy young adults for each of two testing sessions held two weeks apart. Participants completed six repetitions of comfortable speed walking trials, step-up and step-down tasks with activity patterns for each muscle segment time- and amplitude-normalized and averaged across trials. Re-test reliability for was high for activity patterns (coefficient of mean correlation ranging from 0.890 to 0.998) across all tasks and muscle segments and only two pairwise comparisons showing differences in amplitude between sessions. With standardized data collection and analysis procedures, GMed and GMin muscle segment activity patterns show good between-session reliability for weightbearing tasks.

A novel chemical functionalization of guar gum (GG) by benzoic acid (BA) via nucleophilic substitution reaction in aqueous solution has been reported. BA moieties are chosen due to coordination chemistry of carboxylic acid moieties, hydrophobicity and intermolecular interaction of aromatic rings. The presence of conjugated BA on guar gum-benzoic acid (GG-BA) with grafting density of 5.5% is confirmed by 1H NMR. Amorphous GG-BA with irregular morphology has been studied by UV–Vis, FTIR, XRD, SEM, TEM, TGA, computational chemistry and contact angle measurement. GG-BA in a concentration range from 0 to 4000 μg mL−1 has good biocompatibility to mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEF), human mammary epithelial cells (MCF-10A) after 48 and 72 h of treatment using WST-1 assay. GG-BA shows great potential for the development of biomaterials such as bioadhesives, hydrogels, and coacervates.

A chemosensor with a molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) film as the recognition unit selective to a carnosine biomarker was molecularly engineered, devised and fabricated. The molecular structure of the pre-polymerization complex of the carnosine template with the carboxy and 18-crown-6 ether derivatives of bis(2,2′-bithien-5-yl)methane functional monomers was thermodynamically optimized by density functional theory (DFT) at the B3LYP/6-31g(d) level. The calculated high negative Gibbs free energy change, ΔG = −227.4 kJ mol−1, indicated the formation of a very stable complex. The solution of this complex was prepared and used for deposition of the MIP films on a Pt disk electrode or an Au electrode of the quartz crystal resonator by potentiodynamic electropolymerization. Subsequently, the carnosine template was extracted from the MIPs with 0.1 M NaOH, as confirmed by the differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Raman spectroscopy measurements. For carnosine sensing, impedimetric capacity (IC) measurements were performed under flow-injection analysis (FIA) conditions resulting in the limit of detection of 20 μM (at S/N = 3). This limit implied the readiness of the chemosensor for carnosine determination in clinical samples. Due to multiple modes of carnosine binding to MIP recognition sites, the IC chemosensor was found to be more selective to carnosine than to its common interferences including anserine, carcinine and histidine. Advantageously, the imprinting factor, determined by piezoelectric microgravimetry (PM), was high equaling 14.9.