On-line concentration of trace genistein by acid barrage stacking in capillary electrophoresis with UV detection

A capillary electrophoresis method with UV detection was developed for high sensitively determining genistein. In this method, the online acid barrage stacking was applied. Four key factors influencing the stacking efficiency were systematically optimized. Genistein can be detected within 5 min at the concentration of 10 nmol/L, which was 300 times lower than that from conventional hydrodynamic injection. The repeatability, linear range, and limit of detection of the method were investigated with satisfactory result.

Determination of triazine herbicide residues in water samples by on-line sweeping concentration in micellar electrokinetic chromatography

A new method for the determination of atrazine, simazine and prometryn in water samples by on-line sweeping concentration technique in micellar electrokinetic chromatography （MEKC） was developed. Various parameters affecting sample enrichment and separation efficiency were systematically studied. Compared with the conventional MEKC method, up to 60-200-fold improvement in concentration sensitivity was achieved in terms of peak height by using this sweeping injection technique. The compound strychnine was used as the internal standard for the improvement of the experimental reproducibility. The limits of detection （S/ N = 3：1） for atrazine, simazine and prometryn were 9, 10 and 0.5 ng mL-1, respectively. This method has been successfully applied to the analysis of atrazine, simazine and prometryn in lake, steam and ground water.

On-line Sweeping Sample Concentration in Micellar Electrokinetic Chromatography with Enhanced Sensitivity for the Deter-mination of Carbamazepine in Human Serum

A sensitive and simple micellar electrokinetic chromatography （MEKC） method was developed for the determination of antiepileptic drug, carbamazepine （CBZ）, using sweeping on-line concentration method with photodiode array detection. Under the optimal conditions, the calibration curve was linear over a range of 0.5-40μg·mL^-1 for CBZ with a correlation coefficient of 0.998. The detection limit （S/N = 3：1） of CBZ was 0.10 μg·mL^-1. The sweeping-MEKC method has been successfully applied to the analysis of CBZ in human serum.

Vedolizumab serum trough concentrations with and without thiopurines in ulcerative colitis: The prospective VIEWS pharmacokinetics study

BACKGROUND Ulcerative colitis(UC)is a chronic inflammatory condition requiring continuous treatment and monitoring.There is limited pharmacokinetic data on vedolizumab during maintenance therapy and the effect of thiopurines on vedolizumab trough concentrations is unknown.AIM To investigate the exposure-response relationship of vedolizumab and the impact of thiopurine withdrawal in UC patients who have achieved sustained clinical and endoscopic remission during maintenance therapy.METHODS This is a post-hoc analysis of prospective randomized clinical trial(VIEWS)involving UC patients across 8 centers in Australia from 2018 to 2022.Patients in clinical and endoscopic remission were randomized to continue or withdraw thiopurine while receiving vedolizumab.We evaluated vedolizumab serum trough concentrations,presence of anti-vedolizumab antibodies,and clinical outcomes over 48 weeks to assess exposure-response asso-ciation and impact of thiopurine withdrawal.RESULTS There were 62 UC participants with mean age of 43.4 years and 42%were females.All participants received vedolizumab as maintenance therapy with 67.7%withdrew thiopurine.Vedolizumab serum trough concentrations remained stable over 48 weeks regardless of thiopurine use,with no anti-vedolizumab antibodies detected.Pa-tients with clinical remission had higher trough concentrations at week 48.In quartile analysis,a threshold of>11.3μg/mL was associated with sustained clinical remission,showing a sensitivity of 82.4%,specificity of 60.0%,and an area of receiver operating characteristic of 0.71(95%CI:0.49-0.93).Patients discontinuing thiopurine required higher vedolizumab concentrations for achieving remission.CONCLUSION A positive exposure-response relationship between vedolizumab trough concentrations and UC outcomes suggests that monitoring drug levels may be beneficial.While thiopurine did not influence vedolizumab levels,its with-drawal may necessitate higher vedolizumab trough concentrations to maintain remission.

Impact of Pollutant Concentration and Particle Deposition on the Radiative Flow of Casson-Micropolar Fluid between Parallel Plates

Assessing the behaviour and concentration of waste pollutants deposited between two parallel plates is essential for effective environmental management.Determining the effectiveness of treatment methods in reducing pollution scales is made easier by analysing waste discharge concentrations.The waste discharge concentration analysis is useful for assessing how effectively wastewater treatment techniques reduce pollution levels.This study aims to explore the Casson micropolar fluid flow through two parallel plates with the influence of pollutant concentration and thermophoretic particle deposition.To explore the mass and heat transport features,thermophoretic particle deposition and thermal radiation are considered.The governing equations are transformed into ordinary differential equations with the help of suitable similarity transformations.The Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg’s fourthfifth order technique and shooting procedure are used to solve the reduced set of equations and boundary conditions.The integration of a neural network model based on the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm serves to improve the accuracy of predictions and optimize the analysis of parameters.Graphical outcomes are displayed to analyze the characteristics of the relevant dimensionless parameters in the current problem.Results reveal that concentration upsurges as the micropolar parameter increases.The concentration reduces with an upsurge in the thermophoretic parameter.An upsurge in the external pollutant source variation and the local pollutant external source parameters enhances mass transport.The surface drag force declines for improved values of porosity and micropolar parameters.

Sequential injection spectrophotometric determination of nanomolar nitrite in seawater by on-line preconcentration with HLB cartridge

The unstable state of nitrite results in its very low concentration in seawater, which is below the limit of detection （LOD） of conventional techniques of analysis. Some sensitivity-enhanced methods have been proposed for the determination of nitrite at nanomolar level to illustrate the role of nitrite in the marine nitrogen cycle. However, most of previous reports are not widely accepted, because of their complexity and cost equipment or intensive labor requirement. In this study, a simple automatic system for the determination of nanomolar level nitrite using on-line preconcentration with spectrophotometric detection was described..An Oasis HLB cartridge was adopted to quantitatively enrich the pink-colored azo compound, formed from nitrite via Griess reaction. The cartridge was rinsed with water and ethanol （volume fraction is 55%, the same below）, in turn, then eluted by an eluent containing 50% ethanol and 0.25 M（mol/dm^3） H2SO4, and determined at 543 nm with a 2 cm path-length flow cell. Under the optimized experimental conditions, the calibration curve showed a good linearity in the range of 1.4 85.7 aM, and the LOD （3a） was estimated to be 0.5 nM. The relative standard deviations of 7 measurements were 4.0% and 1.0% for the samples spiked at 7.1 and 28.6 nM, respectively. The recoveries for the different natural water samples were between 92.2%-108.4%. Each HLB cartridge could be reused for at least 50 times. As compared with other SPE methods, the advantages of this method included the free of interference from salinity variation and less sample consuming. The results of the application of the proposed method to natural water showed good agreement with liquid waveguide capillary cell detection method.

Flow-Injection Microcolumn on-Line Preconcentration for theDetermination of Chromium(Ⅵ)

A rapid and sensitive on-line preconcentration method for spectrophotometric determination of chromium (VI) in nature water is described. Preconcentration and determination are based on (i) the quantitative and fast adsorption of chromium (VI) on the high surface area nanometer-size TiO2 (anatase) powders, which prepared by a sol-gel method from hydrolysis of TiCI4 and (ii) the quantitative and reproducible elution of Cr (VI) by 2. 0 mol. L-1 HCI. A mini-column system for preconcentration is developed, Cr(VI)on the mini-column is eluted and merged with a stream water and DPCB (1, 5-diphenylcarbazide ) as the chromogenic reagent. The Proposed system permits throughputs of 6 sample h--l (0. 001 μg mL-1 Cr(VI) ) or 20 sample h-1 (0. 1 μg mL-1Cr (VI) . The preconcentration factor is 55. The detection limit is 0. 8 ng·mL-1 Cr(VI). The reproducibility is satisfactory with a relative standard deviation of less than 3. 35% (0. Of μg'mL-1Cr (VI), n = 5).

Application of Capillary Electrophoretic On-Line Sequential Concentration Based on Micelle to Solvent Stacking

To take advantage of micelle to solvent stacking (MSS) to achieve more sensitivity enhancement with enough selectivity, the application of capillary electrophoretic online sequential concentration based on the MSS was reviewed. MSS has been coupled to sweeping FASS, FASI and normal EKI. Furthermore, multiple stacking by coupling MSS with more than one stacking method has also been reported. It is more sensitive and selective than solely used of one or two stacking methods and is very suitable for complex and trace sample analysis.

Cobalt Determination by Means of Flow Injection On-line Sorbent Preconcentration-Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometry with 1-Nitroso-2-naphthol as a Complexing Reagent

The suitability of 1-nitroso-2-naphthol(NN) as a complexing agent for on-line preconcentration of cobalt eluted on the C_(18) microcolumn by means of the FI-FAAS system was tested. Various parameters affecting the complex formation and its elution were optimized. A 2.3×10^(-3) mol/L reagent solution and the aqueous sample solution acidified with 0.1% (volume fraction) nitric acid were on-line mixed (6.4 mL/min) on a reaction coil set at (65±1)℃ and flowed through the microcolumn for 30 s. The pH of the mixed solution was adjusted to 3—4 with HNO_3(1 mol/L) or NaOH(1 mol/L). The adsorbed complexes in the microcolumn were eluted into the nebulizer of FAAS in 10 s with ethanol acidified with 1% HNO_3(3.0 mL/min). A good precision(1.6% for 100μg/L Co(Ⅱ), n=10), a high enrichment factor 17.2, with detection limit (3σ) 3.2μg/L, and sample throughput (90 h^(-1)) were obtained. The method was applied to the certified reference materials(CRMs), NBS-362 and NBS-364, for the determination of cobalt and the results were in good agreement with the certified values.

PMOXA/PAA Brushes toward on-Line Preconcentration for BSA in Capillary Electrophoresis

In this work, a binary-mixed-brushes-coated (BBC) capillary with switchable protein adsorption/desorption properties was developed and applied for on-line preconcentration of proteins. Firstly, amine-terminated poly(2-methyl-2-oxazoline)(PMOXA-NH2) and thiolterminated poly(acrylic acid)(PAA-SH) were synthesized by using cationic ring-opening polymerization (CROP) and reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization, respectively. Then, the BBC capillary based on poly(2-methyl-2-oxazoline)(PMOXA) and poly(acrylic acid)(PAA) was prepared by sequentially grafting of PMOXA-NH2 and PAA-SH onto fused-silica capillary inner surface through poly(dopamine)(PDA) as an anchor. The obtained PMOXA/PAA coating formed on the capillary or capillary's raw material was characterized in terms of the thickness, surface chemical composition by using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectrum (XPS). The switchable protein adsorption/desorption performance of the BBC capillary was investigated by using fluorescence microscope under di erent solutions with certain pH and ionic strength(I). The results showed that bovine serum albumin (BSA) could be adsorbed on BBC capillary at pH=5.0 (I=10^-5 mol/L), and then the adsorbed BSA could be released at pH=9.0 (I=0.1 mol/L). This switchable protein adsorption/desorption property of coated capillary was then used to preconcentrate proteins on-line for increasing the detection sensitivity of BSA in capillary electrophoresis (CE). With this method, a sensitivity enhancement factor (SEF) more than 5000 for BSA detection was obtained.

On-line coupling of derivatization with pre-concentration to determine trace levels of methotrexate

A new simple, sensitive and precise green analytical procedure using an automated packed-reactor derivatization technique coupled with on-line solid-phase enrichment （SPEn） has been developed and evaluated to determine trace levels of methotrexate （MTX）. The method was based on injection of MTX into a flowing stream of phosphate buffer （0.04 M, ptt 3.4）, carried through the packed oxidant reactor of Cerium （IV） trihydroxyhydroperoxide for oxidative cleavage of the drug into highly fluorescent product, 2,4-diaminopteridine- 6-carboxylic acid, followed by SPEn on a head of short ODS column （10mm x 4.6 mm i.d., 5 I＋tm particle size）. The flow rate was 0.25 mL/min and packed reactor temperaturc was 40 ~C. The trapped product was back-flush eluted from the ODS column to the detector by column-switching with an environmentally friendly mobile phase consisting of ethanol and phosphate buffer （0.04 M, pH 3.4） in the ratio of 5：95 （v/v）. The eluent was monitored at emission and excitation wavelengths of 460 and was linear over the concentration range of 1.25-50 360 nm, respectively. The calibration curve ng/mL with a detection limit of 0.08 ug/ml..The method was successfully applied to determine MTX in pharmaceutical formulations with mean percentage recovery ranging from 99.48 to 99.60.

DETERMINATION OF ANTIMONY IN WATER SAMPLES BY FLOW-INJECTION HYDRIDE GENERATION ATOMIC ABSORPTION SPECTROMETRY WITH ON-LINE ION-EXCHANGE COLUMN PRECONCENTRATION

On-line ion-exchange separation and preconcentration were combined with flow-injection hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry (HGAAS) to determine ultra-trace amounts of antimony in water samples. Antimony(Ⅲ) was preconcentrated on a micro-column packed with CPG-8Q chelating ion-exchanger using time-based sample loading and eluted by 4 mol l^(-1) HCl directly into the hydride generation AAS system. A detection limit (3σ) of 0.0015μg l^(-1) Sb(Ⅲ) was obtained on the basis of a 20 fold enrichment and with a sampling frequency of 60h^(-1). The precision was 1.0% r.s.d.(n=11) at the 0.5μg l^(-1) Sb(Ⅲ) level. Recoveries for the analysis of antimony in tap water, snow water and sea water samples were in the range 97-102%.

PRECONCENTRATION OF TRACE ZINC IN SEAWATER ON CPPI RESIN BY FIA AND ON-LINE DETECTION BY ICP-AFS

A quite new type of chelating resin Carboxymethylated Polyethylenimine-Polymethylenepolyphenylene Isocyanate(CPPI)is used for the preconcentration of Zn from high salt water such as seawater. The preconcentration is controlled through the technique of Flow Injection Analysis(FIA).The concentrated sample solution is then directly transferred to an Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Fluorescence Spectrometer(ICP-AFS)for determination.The detection limit of Zn by the technique is about 0.06 ppb.

On-line estimation of concentration parameters in fermentation processes

It has long been thought that bioprocess, with their inherent measurement difficulties and complex dynamics, posed almost insurmountable problems to engineers. A novel software sensor is proposed to make more effective use of those meas- urements that are already available, which enable improvement in fermentation process control. The proposed method is based on mixtures of Gaussian processes (GP) with expectation maximization (EM) algorithm employed for parameter estimation of mixture of models. The mixture model can alleviate computational complexity of GP and also accord with changes of operating condition in fermentation processes, i.e., it would certainly be able to examine what types of process-knowledge would be most relevant for local models’ specific operating points of the process and then combine them into a global one. Demonstrated by on-line estimate of yeast concentration in fermentation industry as an example, it is shown that soft sensor based state estimation is a powerful technique for both enhancing automatic control performance of biological systems and implementing on-line moni- toring and optimization.

Dynamics and genetic regulation of macronutrient concentrations during grain development in maize

Nitrogen(N), phosphorus(P), and potassium(K) are essential macronutrients that are crucial not only for maize growth and development, but also for crop yield and quality. The genetic basis of macronutrient dynamics and accumulation during grain filling in maize remains largely unknown. In this study, we evaluated grain N, P, and K concentrations in 206 recombinant inbred lines generated from a cross of DH1M and T877 at six time points after pollination. We then calculated conditional phenotypic values at different time intervals to explore the dynamic characteristics of the N, P, and K concentrations. Abundant phenotypic variations were observed in the concentrations and net changes of these nutrients. Unconditional quantitative trait locus(QTL) mapping revealed 41 non-redundant QTLs, including 17, 16, and 14 for the N, P, and K concentrations, respectively. Conditional QTL mapping uncovered 39 non-redundant QTLs related to net changes in the N, P, and K concentrations. By combining QTL, gene expression, co-expression analysis, and comparative genomic data, we identified 44, 36, and 44 candidate genes for the N, P, and K concentrations, respectively, including GRMZM2G371058 encoding a Doftype zinc finger DNA-binding family protein, which was associated with the N concentration, and GRMZM2G113967encoding a CBL-interacting protein kinase, which was related to the K concentration. The results deepen our understanding of the genetic factors controlling N, P, and K accumulation during maize grain development and provide valuable genes for the genetic improvement of nutrient concentrations in maize.

Rheological properties and concentration evolution of thickened tailings under the coupling effect of compression and shear

Cemented paste backfill(CPB)is a key technology for green mining in metal mines,in which tailings thickening comprises the primary link of CPB technology.However,difficult flocculation and substandard concentrations of thickened tailings often occur.The rheological properties and concentration evolution in the thickened tailings remain unclear.Moreover,traditional indoor thickening experiments have yet to quantitatively characterize their rheological properties.An experiment of flocculation condition optimization based on the Box-Behnken design(BBD)was performed in the study,and the two response values were investigated:concentration and the mean weighted chord length(MWCL)of flocs.Thus,optimal flocculation conditions were obtained.In addition,the rheological properties and concentration evolution of different flocculant dosages and ultrafine tailing contents under shear,compression,and compression-shear coupling experimental conditions were tested and compared.The results show that the shear yield stress under compression and compression-shear coupling increases with the growth of compressive yield stress,while the shear yield stress increases slightly under shear.The order of shear yield stress from low to high under different thickening conditions is shear,compression,and compression-shear coupling.Under compression and compression-shear coupling,the concentration first rapidly increases with the growth of compressive yield stress and then slowly increases,while concentration increases slightly under shear.The order of concentration from low to high under different thickening conditions is shear,compression,and compression-shear coupling.Finally,the evolution mechanism of the flocs and drainage channels during the thickening of the thickened tailings under different experimental conditions was revealed.

Trends of surface ozone based on hourly concentrations in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region during 2017–2021

As a typical secondary air pollutant,surface ozone has been monitored routinely since 2013 in China.Most studies on the spatiotemporal variation of ozone have been centered around the daily maximum 8-h average,with little attention paid to the trends of hourly ozone,especially hourly ozone exceedances.Focusing on hourly ozone exceedances and peak values,the spatiotemporal trends of hourly ozone at 77 sites in 13 cities of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei(BTH)region during 2017-2021 were analyzed in this study.The number of hours with exceedances(N_(H200))in 2019 was nearly three times that of 2021.On a five-year average,the percentage of cumulative NH200 in June accounted for up to 40.5%of all hourly exceedances.Cities in central Hebei Province had the highest cumulative annual N_(H200).June had the highest average hourly ozone exceeded multiples of 0.158.The top two cities with the highest average exceeded multiple were Tangshan(0.166)and Beijing(0.158).Tangshan and Xingtai ranked as the top two in terms of the mean of the 10 highest daily maximum ozone concentrations(MTDM),with 286.74 and 285.37μg m^(−3),respectively.The gap between the MTDM and the daily maximum of hourly ozone averaged over all sites had narrowed to 97.88μg m^(−3) in 2021,much lower than that in other years,which indicated that the stability and convergence of ozone pollution in BTH region had been enhanced in 2021 to some extent.

A Facile Li_(2)TiO_(3) Surface Modification to Improve the Structure Stability and Electrochemical Performance of Full Concentration Gradient Li-Rich Oxides

Full concentration gradient lithium-rich layered oxides are catching lots of interest as the next generation cathode for lithium-ion batteries due to their high discharge voltage,reduced voltage decay and enhanced rate performance,whereas the high lithium residues on its surface impairs the structure stability and long-term cycle performance.Herein,a facile multifunctional surface modification method is implemented to eliminate surface lithium residues of full concentration gradient lithium-rich layered oxides by a wet chemistry reaction with tetrabutyl titanate and the post-annealing process.It realizes not only a stable Li_(2)TiO_(3)coating layer with 3D diffusion channels for fast Li^(+)ions transfer,but also dopes partial Ti^(4+)ions into the sub-surface region of full concentration gradient lithium-rich layered oxides to further strengthen its crystal structure.Consequently,the modified full concentration gradient lithium-rich layered oxides exhibit improved structure stability,elevated thermal stability with decomposition temperature from 289.57℃to 321.72℃,and enhanced cycle performance(205.1 mAh g^(-1)after 150 cycles)with slowed voltage drop(1.67 mV per cycle).This work proposes a facile and integrated modification method to enhance the comprehensive performance of full concentration gradient lithium-rich layered oxides,which can facilitate its practical application for developing higher energy density lithium-ion batteries.

STRONGLY CONVERGENT INERTIAL FORWARD-BACKWARD-FORWARD ALGORITHM WITHOUT ON-LINE RULE FOR VARIATIONAL INEQUALITIES

This paper studies a strongly convergent inertial forward-backward-forward algorithm for the variational inequality problem in Hilbert spaces.In our convergence analysis,we do not assume the on-line rule of the inertial parameters and the iterates,which have been assumed by several authors whenever a strongly convergent algorithm with an inertial extrapolation step is proposed for a variational inequality problem.Consequently,our proof arguments are different from what is obtainable in the relevant literature.Finally,we give numerical tests to confirm the theoretical analysis and show that our proposed algorithm is superior to related ones in the literature.

Suppressed concentration quenching and tunable photoluminescence in Eu^(2+)-activated Rb_(3)Y(PO_(4))_(2)phosphors for full-spectrum lighting

Highly efficient inorganic phosphors are desirable for lighting-emitting diode light sources,and increasing the doping concentration of activators is a common approach for enhancing the photoluminescence quantum yield(PLQY).However,the constraint of concentration quenching poses a great challenge for improving the PLQY.Herein,we propose a fundamental design principle by separating activators and prolonging their distance in Eu^(2+)-activated Rb_(3)Y(PO_(4))_(2)phosphors to inhibit concentration quenching,in which different quenching rates are controlled by the Eu distribution at various crystallographic sites.The blue-violet-emitting Rb_(3)Y(PO_(4))2:xEu(x=0.1%–15%)phosphors,with the occupation of Rb1,Rb2 and Y sites by Eu^(2+),exhibit rapid luminescence quenching with optimum external PLQY of 10%due to multi-channel energy migration.Interestingly,as the Eu concentration increases above 20%,Eu^(2+)prefer to occupy the Rb1 and Y sites with separated polyhedra and large interionic distances,resulting in green emission with suppressed concentration quenching,achieving an improved external PLQY of 41%.Our study provides a unique design perspective for elevating the efficiency of Eu^(2+)-activated phosphors toward high-performance inorganic luminescent materials for full-spectrum lighting.