Spatial inhomogeneity in poly(acrylic acid) hydrogels

The crosslink density distribution in gels known as the spatial gel inhomogeneity has been investigated in poly(acrylic acid) (PAAc) gels with the static light scattering measurements. PAAc gels were prepared at a fixed chemical crosslink density but at various initial monomer concentrations. The gels were characterized by swelling and elasticity tests as well as by light scattering measurements. PAAc gels exhibit a maximum degree of spatial inhomogeneity at a critical monomer concentration . shifts toward higher concentrations as the gel swells beyond its dilution degree after preparation. Depending on the polymer concentration in gels, swelling reduces or enhances the extent of the spatial inhomogeneities. It was shown that the apparent degree of the spatial gel inhomogeneity is determined by the combination of three effects, namely the effects of the effective crosslink density, charge density and segment density. The relative magnitudes of these effects vary depending on the polymer concentration and lead to the appearance of a maximum degree of spatial inhomogeneity at a critical concentration.     

Comparison of Fatty Acid, Sterol, and Tocol Compositions in Skin and Kernel of Turpentine (Pistacia terebinthus L.) Fruits

Pistacia terebinthus L. is an indigenous plant growing wild in the southern regions of Turkey. Its fruits are used in foods, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics due to its high oil content (ca. 45 g/100 g). In the present study, it was found out that the kernel and the skin parts of the fruit differ significantly (p < 0.05) both in terms of oil content and composition. Regardless of the geographical origin, the most abundant fatty acid was found to be monounsaturated oleic acid, 18:1n-9 whose content was in the range of 51.2–67.5 g/100 g. β-sitosterol is the predominant sterol in kernel and skin of the terebinthus fruits whose content was varying between 97.4 and 219.8 mg/100 g. Concerning different tocols (tocopherols and tocotrienols) detected in the kernel and skin, γ-T was the one with highest concentration (437.2 mg/kg) in kernels, while the most abundant one in skin parts was found to be α-T (348.7 mg/kg). In general the kernel of terebinthus fruits was more concentrated in PUFA, total sterol and tocopherols than skin, however, total tocotrienol content was higher in skin than kernel. On the basis of these findings it can be concluded that both kernel and skin are highly valuable in terms of bioactive compounds, whereas skin with a high amount saturated fatty acids is more suited to applications in cosmetic industry.     

FT-IR spectroscopic investigation of the surface reaction of CH4 with NO x species adsorbed on Pd/WO3–ZrO2 catalyst

The interaction of methane at various temperatures with NO _x species formed by room temperature adsorption of NO + O₂ mixture on tungstated zirconia (18.6 wt.% WO₃) and palladium(II)-promoted tungstated zirconia (0.1 wt.% Pd) has been investigated using in situ FT-IR spectroscopy. A mechanism for the reduction of NO over the Pd-promoted tungstated zirconia is proposed, which involves a step consisting of thermal decomposition of the nitromethane to adsorbed NO and formates through the intermediacy of cis-methyl nitrite. The HCOO⁻ formed acts as a reductant of the adsorbed NO producing nitrogen.     

Evaluating TCP-friendliness in light of Concurrent Multipath Transfer

In prior work, a CMT protocol using SCTP multihoming (termed SCTP-based CMT) was proposed and investigated for improving application throughput. SCTP-based CMT was studied in (bottleneck-independent) wired networking scenarios with ns-2 simulations. This paper studies the TCP-friendliness of CMT in the Internet. In this paper, we surveyed historical developments of the TCP-friendliness concept and argued that the original TCP-friendliness doctrine should be extended to incorporate multihoming and SCTP-based CMT.Since CMT is based on (single-homed) SCTP, we first investigated TCP-friendliness of single-homed SCTP. We discovered that although SCTP’s congestion control mechanisms were intended to be “similar” to TCP’s, being a newer protocol, SCTP specification has some of the proposed TCP enhancements already incorporated which results in SCTP performing better than TCP. Therefore, SCTP obtains larger share of the bandwidth when competing with a TCP flavor that does not have similar enhancements. We concluded that SCTP is TCP-friendly, but achieves higher throughput than TCP, due to SCTP’s better loss recovery mechanisms just as TCP-SACK and TCP-Reno perform better than TCP-Tahoe.We then investigated the TCP-friendliness of CMT. Via QualNet simulations, we found out that one two-homed CMT association has similar or worse performance (for smaller number of competing TCP flows) than the aggregated performance of two independent, single-homed SCTP associations while sharing the link with other TCP connections, for the reason that a CMT flow creates a burstier data traffic than independent SCTP flows. When compared to the aggregated performance of two-independent TCP connections, one two-homed CMT obtains a higher share of the tight link bandwidth because of better loss recovery mechanisms in CMT. In addition, sharing of ACK information makes CMT more resilient to losses. Although CMT obtains higher throughput than two independent TCP flows, CMT’s AIMD-based congestion control mechanism allows other TCP flows to co-exist in the network. Therefore, we concluded that CMT is TCP-friendly, similar to two TCP-Reno flows are TCP-friendly when compared to two TCP-Tahoe flows.     

The effect of the presence of Ag nanoparticles on the photocatalytic degradation of oxalic acid adsorbed on TiO2 nanoparticles monitored by ATR-FTIR

Photocatalytic degradation of oxalic acid adsorbed on the Ag/P25 TiO₂ composite nanoparticle films were investigated using ATR-FTIR technique under UV irradiation. Ag/P25 TiO₂ composite nanoparticle films with various Ag content were tested. Topography and chemical structure/composition of the composite nanoparticle films were analyzed by AFM and XPS respectively. It was found that in the degradation reaction of the oxalic acid, the presence of only 2% Ag nanoparticles leads to six times more oxalic acid degradation compared to that degraded in the presence of pure P25 TiO₂ nanoparticles. The degradation rate of the oxalic acid is three times higher in the case of Ag/TiO₂ composite nanoparticle film than in the case of pure TiO₂ nanoparticles. It was observed that both the rate of oxalic acid degradation and the degraded amount of the oxalic acid were significantly affected by Ag incorporation.     

Lipid characteristics and phenolics of native grape seed oils grown in Turkey

Grape seed oils of seven native Turkish cultivars (namely Atfi, Mazruna, Black Kerkü?, Zeyti, Verdani, Karfoki, and Kerkü?) were evaluated for their fatty acids, tocols, phytosterols as well as total phenolics and oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) values. Among the fatty acids, linoleic acid (18:2ω6) was the most abundant (56.38–68.56%), followed by oleic acid (16.45–29.38%, 18:1ω9), palmitic acid (8.19–9.44%, 16:0), and stearic acid (3.74–4.98%, 18:0). Total tocopherols and tocotrienol amounts varied in the range of 102.30–305.43 and 251.47–468.22 mg/kg, respectively. Beta‐sitosterol was the most abundant sterol among grape cultivars whose concentration ranging from 64.19 to 71.62%. Total phenolic content ranged from 2.19 to 4.70 mg of gallic acid equivalents/100 g oil, being lowest in Zeyti and highest in Verdani. With respect to antioxidant activities, a large variation in ORAC values was observed among grape seed oils (ranging from 1048 µmol of Trolox equivalents (TE)/100 g in Karfoki to 2569 µmol of TE/100 g in Mazruna). Practical applications: The crude grape seed oils extracted from different cultivars are a good source of nutrients, fat‐soluble bioactives, and health‐promoting components.