Sustained feeding of a diet high in fat resulted in a decline in the liver's insulin-degrading enzyme levels in association with the induction of oxidative and endoplasmic reticulum stress in adult male rats: Evaluation of 4-phenylbutyric acid.

The current study explored the impact of high fat diet (HFD) on hepatic oxidative and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and its insulin degrading enzyme (IDE) content with the injection of 4-phenyl butyric acid (4-PBA) in adult male rats. Following the weaning period, male offspring were distributed among six distinct groups. The corresponding diet was used for 20 weeks, subsequently 4-PBA was administered for three consecutive days. Plasma glucose and insulin levels, HOMA-ß (homeostasis model assessment of ß-cell), hepatic ER and oxidative stress biomarkers and IDE protein content were assessed. Long-term ingestion of HFD (31 % cow butter) induced oxidative and ER stress in the liver tissue. Accordingly, a rise in the malondialdehyde (MDA) content and catalase enzyme activity and a decrease in the glutathione (GSH) content were detected within the liver of the HFD and HFD + DMSO groups. Consumption of this diet elevated the liver expression of binding immunoglobulin protein (BIP) and C/enhancer-binding protein homologous protein (CHOP) levels while reduced its IDE content. The HOMA-ß decreased significantly. The injection of the 4-PBA moderated all the induced changes. Findings from this study indicated that prolonged HFD consumption led to a reduction in plasma insulin levels, likely attributed to pancreatic ß cell malfunction, as evidenced by a decline in the HOMA-ß index. Also, the HFD appears to have triggered oxidative and ER stress in the liver, along with a decrease in its IDE content.

Improved infectious burn wound healing by applying lyophilized particles containing probiotics and prebiotics.

Lactiplantibacillus plantarum cells were encapsulated in a mixture of cationic and anionic polymers, with the final composition stabilized through freeze-drying. A D-optimal design was used to examine the effects of different polymer concentrations as well as adding prebiotics on the probiotic viability and swelling behavior of the formulations. Scanning electron micrographs revealed stacked particles capable of rapidly absorbing significant amounts of water. These images corresponded to initial swelling percentages of around 2000% for the optimal formulation. The optimized formula had a viability percentage of more than 82%, with the stability studies suggesting that the powders should be stored at refrigerated temperatures. The physical characteristics of the optimized formula were examined to ensure compatibility with its application. According to antimicrobial evaluations, the difference in pathogen inhibition between formulated and fresh probiotics was less than a logarithm. The final formula was tested in vivo and showed improved wound healing indicators. The optimized formula resulted in a higher rate of wound closure and infection clearance. Furthermore, the molecular studies for oxidative stress indicated that the formula could modify wound inflammatory responses. In histological investigations, the probiotic-loaded particles functioned exactly as efficaciously as silver sulfadiazine ointment did.

Acute morphine injection persistently affects the electrophysiological characteristics of rat locus coeruleus neurons.

Administration of morphine is associated with critical complications in clinic which primarily includes the development of dependence and tolerance even following a single dose (acute) exposure. Behavioral and electrophysiological studies support the significant role of locus coeruleus (LC) neurons in tolerance and dependence following chronic morphine exposure. The current study was designed to explore the electrophysiological properties of the LC neurons following acute morphine exposure. In-vitro whole-cell patch-clamp recordings were performed in LC neurons 24 h after intraperitoneal morphine injection. Acute morphine injection significantly decreased the spontaneous firing rate of LC neurons, the rising and decay slopes of action potentials, and consequently increased the action potential duration. In addition, morphine treatment did not alter the rheobase current and first spike latency while affected the inhibitory postsynaptic currents elicited in response to orexin-A. In fact, single morphine exposure could inhibit the disinhibitory effect of orexin-A on LC neurons.

Risk-taking Behavior Under the Effect of Emotional Stimuli Among Children and Adults.

Introduction: Risk-taking has an important role in human life, either positive or negative. Finding a method to control or drive this in a particular way can affect the health of individuals and communities by discouraging negative risks, such as reckless driving, or encouraging positive risks. It has been shown that emotion induction can enhance risk-taking behavior. Nonetheless, studies are mainly conducted on adults and a gap to focus on adolescents group as the peak age of risk-taking is required. Therefore, a new risk-taking task is introduced and development of risk-taking behavior in children is compared with a group male adults. In addition, influence of positive and negative emotional images on the risk-taking behavior is also evaluated. Methods: A total of 21 children and 20 adults participated in this experiment. Their risk taking behavior is obtained using a new version of the dice game task with emotional stimuli. Subsequently, performances of two groups before and after emotional priming are statistically compared. Results: The results showed that children have a higher tendency to choose riskier options when they are affected by positive emotion, while adults are more risk-averse after being primed by negative emotion. Conclusion: These findings can be helpful for policymakers and tutoring planners to control risk-taking behavior at different ages using the priming effect of positive and negative emotions. Highlights: Children perform riskier than adults in our new version of the game of dice task.Children are affected by choosing riskier options by positive priming.Adults are affected by choosing less risky options by negative priming.Results were proved by dual-process theory. Plain Language Summary: Every second of our life is consistent with decision-making. When you decide you face conditions that you do not know the result when you choose them. Choosing these options is associated with risks. Choosing these options can have both advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, it will be very useful for communities, if they can find a way to control it. In this study, we aimed to test whether it is possible to control risk-taking by viewing emotional pictures before decision-making or not. Hence, we design gambling-like experiments and test adults and children using this experiment. These two age groups were used to test the existence of any difference or similarity between their behaviors. We used three main emotions to check their effect on people's choices. We wanted to check what happens to people's decisions if they are faced with positive, negative, or neutral images before their choice. Results showed that children were riskier than adults and affected more when facing positive images and selecting riskier options. On the other hand, adults are more affected by negative images and chose safer options after seeing the pictures in this emotion.

Six-component synthesis and biological activity of novel spiropyridoindolepyrrolidine derivatives: A combined experimental and theoretical investigation.

Petasites hybridus rhizome water extract was used as green media for the preparation of Ag/Fe3O4/CdO@multi-walled carbon nanotubes magnetic nanocomposites (Ag/Fe3O4/CdO@MWCNTs MNCs), and its activity was evaluated by using in the one-pot multicomponent reaction of isatins, acetyl chloride, secondary amines, vinilidene Meldrum's acid, primary amines, and malononitrile in an aqueous medium at room temperature for the generation of spiropyridoindolepyrrolidine as new derivatives with tremendous output. In addition, organic pollutant reduction of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) was carried out by generated Ag/Fe3O4/CdO@MWCNTs in water at room temperature. The results displayed that Ag/Fe3O4/CdO@MWCNTs were reduced as pollutants of organic compounds in a short time. The synthesized spiropyridoindolepyrrolidine has an NH2 functional group that has acidic hydrogen and shows high antioxidant ability. Also, the spiropyridoindolepyrrolidine exhibited antimicrobial ability, and the method that is used for this purpose is the disk diffusion method, and two kinds of bacteria, Gram-positive and Gram-negative, were employed for this analysis. Also, to better understand the reaction mechanism density, functional theory-based quantum chemical methods have been applied. For the generation of spiropyridoindolepyrrolidine, the used process has many properties such as reactions with short time, product with good yields, and simple extraction of catalyst from the mixture of reaction.

Prenatal exposure to morphine enhances excitability in locus coeruleus neurons.

Opioid abuse during pregnancy may have noteworthy effects on the child's behavioral, emotional and cognitive progression. In this study, we assessed the effect of prenatal exposure to morphine on electrophysiological features of locus coeruleus (LC) noradrenergic neurons which is involved in modulating cognitive performance. Pregnant dams were randomly divided into two groups, that is a prenatal saline treated and prenatal morphine-treated group. To this end, on gestational days 11-18, either morphine or saline (twice daily, s.c.) was administered to pregnant dams. Whole-cell patch-clamp recordings were conducted on LC neurons of male offspring. The evoked firing rate, instantaneous frequency and action potentials half-width, and also input resistance of LC neurons significantly increased in the prenatal morphine group compared to the saline group. Moreover, action potentials decay slope, after hyperpolarization amplitude, rheobase current, and first spike latency were diminished in LC neurons following prenatal exposure to morphine. In addition, resting membrane potential, rise slope, and amplitude of action potentials were not changed by prenatal morphine exposure. Together, the current findings show a significant enhancement in excitability of the LC neurons following prenatal morphine exposure, which may affect the release of norepinephrine to other brain regions and/or cognitive performances of the offspring.

Trilayer Metal-Organic Frameworks as Multifunctional Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion and Storage Applications.

The need for enhanced energy storage and improved catalysts has led researchers to explore advanced functional materials for sustainable energy production and storage. Herein, we demonstrate a reductive electrosynthesis approach to prepare a layer-by-layer (LbL) assembled trimetallic Fe-Co-Ni metal-organic framework (MOF) in which the metal cations within each layer or at the interface of the two layers are linked to one another by bridging 2-amino-1,4-benzenedicarboxylic acid linkers. Tailoring catalytically active sites in an LbL fashion affords a highly porous material that exhibits excellent trifunctional electrocatalytic activities toward the hydrogen evolution reaction (ηj=10 = 116 mV), oxygen evolution reaction (ηj=10 = 254 mV), as well as oxygen reduction reaction (half-wave potential = 0.75 V vs reference hydrogen electrode) in alkaline solutions. The dispersion-corrected density functional theory calculations suggest that the prominent catalytic activity of the LbL MOF toward the HER, OER, and ORR is due to the initial negative adsorption energy of water on the metal nodes and the elongated O-H bond length of the H2O molecule. The Fe-Co-Ni MOF-based Zn-air battery exhibits a remarkable energy storage performance and excellent cycling stability of over 700 cycles that outperform the commercial noble metal benchmarks. When assembled in an asymmetric device configuration, the activated carbon||Fe-Co-Ni MOF supercapacitor provides a superb specific energy and a power of up to 56.2 W h kg-1 and 42.2 kW kg-1, respectively. This work offers not only a novel approach to prepare an LbL assembled multimetallic MOF but also provides a benchmark for a multifunctional electrocatalyst for water splitting and Zn-air batteries.

Development of novel aptasensor for ultra-sensitive detection of myoglobin via electrochemical signal amplification of methylene blue using poly (styrene)-block-poly (acrylic acid) amphiphilic copolymer.

Amplification of electrochemical signal in order to betterment of limit of detection in determination of biomarkers has an important role in early detection of some dangerous diseases such as cancers. For this purpose, in this research, two types of poly (styrene)-block-poly (acrylic acid) amphiphilic copolymer (PS61-b-PAA596 and PS596-b-PAA61) were synthesized by controlled radical polymerization method via reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer polymerization (RAFT) technique. Chemical structure of block copolymers was confirmed by FT-IR spectroscopy and their surface morphology was assessed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Self-assembly of these block copolymers into polymeric vesicles (polymersomes), loading and release efficiency of methylene blue as an electroactive indicator were investigated in DMF and THF solvents. On the basis of our findings PS61-b-PAA596 has better capability for loading and release of MB than PS596-b-PAA61. Then the obtained methylene blue-loaded polymersome successfully used for development of an aptasensor toward determination of trace amounts of myoglobin. The proposed aptasensor showed a wide linear range from 1.0 aM to 1.0 µM with an ultra-low detection limit of 0.73 aM. Applying this amplification strategy, determination of myoglobin in real samples was successfully performed.

Possible involvement of female sex steroid hormones in intracellular signal transduction mediated by cytokines following traumatic brain injury.

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to determine the anti-inflammatory effect of female sex hormones on the level of intracellular molecules of cytokine signaling pathway after diffuse traumatic brain injury (TBI) in ovariectomized rats. METHODS: Female rats were divided into 10 groups: control, sham, TBI, Vehicle (oil), Vehicle E1 (33.3 µg/kg), E2 (1 mg / kg), P1 (1.7 mg/kg), P2 (8 mg / kg), E2 + P1. All drugs were injected 0.5 h after TBI. Brain edema and the brain levels of P-STAT-3, NFκB-P52, NFκB-P65, P-IκB, and SOCS-3 by immunohistochemistry measured at 24 h after TBI. RESULTS: Increased brain edema after TBI was inhibited by different doses of estrogen, progesterone (P < 0.001), and E2 + P1 (P < 0.05). The brain levels of P-STAT-3, NFκB-P52, NFκB-P65, and p-IκBα that increased after TBI was decreased only by E2 (P < 0.05). E2 and E2 + P1 have increased the SOCS-3 level after TBI (P < 0.05). Also, there was a difference between the E2 with E1 and two progesterone doses (P < 0.05). So that in all cases, the effects of E2 were more significant than the other groups. The target cells for these effects of E2 were microglia and astrocytes. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that one of the probable mechanism(s) of estrogen anti-inflammatory effect after TBI is either reduction of p-STAT-3, NFκB-P52, p-NFκB-P65, and p-IκBα or increase in SOCS-3 molecules involved in the signaling pathway of inflammatory cytokines.

Frequency of Cardiovascular Complications and Its Association with Prognosis of COVID-19 Patients.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may lead to acute respiratory disease; cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and coagulation complications; and even death. One of the major complications is cardiovascular disorders, including arrhythmias, myocarditis, pericarditis, and acute coronary artery disease. The aim of this study was to evaluate the frequency of cardiovascular complications and to determine its association with the prognosis of COVID-19 patients. In a prospective analytic study, 137 hospitalized COVID-19 patients were enrolled. During hospitalization, an electrocardiogram (ECG) was performed every other day, and laboratory tests such as cardiac troponin I (cTnI) and creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB) were done 0, 6, and 12 hours after admission. These tests were repeated for patients with chest pain or ECG changes. Patients were categorized into three groups (improved, complicated, and expired patients) and assessed for the rate and type of arrhythmias, cardiac complications, lab tests, and outcomes of treatments. There was no significant relationship among the three groups related to primary arrhythmia and arrhythmias during treatment. The most common arrhythmia during hospitalization and after treatment was ST-T fragment changes. There was a significant age difference between the three groups (P = 0.001). There was a significant difference among the three groups for some underlying diseases, including diabetes mellitus (P = 0.003) and hyperlipidemia (P = 0.004). In our study, different types of arrhythmias had no association with patients' outcomes but age over 60 years, diabetes mellitus, and hyperlipidemia played an important role in the prognosis of COVID-19 cases.

Formalin-induced inflammatory pain increases excitability in locus coeruleus neurons.

Chronic pain is recognized as an important problem in communities. The locus coeruleus (LC) with extensive ascending and descending projections has a critical role in modulating pain. Some studies indicate how the locus coeruleus-noradrenaline system can remain more active after nociceptive stimulation. In the present study, we examined whether formalin-induced inflammatory pain may affect the electrophysiological properties of LC neurons after 24 h. Inflammatory pain was induced by a subcutaneous injection of 2% formalin (10 µL) into the hind paw of 2-3 week-old male Wistar rats. After 24 h, horizontal slices of brain stem containing the locus coeruleus were prepared and whole-cell patch-clamp recordings were carried out on LC neurons. Findings revealed that LC neurons from formalin injected rats had a significant enhancement in firing rate, half-width and instantaneous frequency of action potentials, but their resting membrane potential, input resistance and afterhyperpolarization amplitude almost remained unchanged. In addition, action potential peak amplitude, maximum rise slope, maximum decay slope, first spike latency and rheobase current significantly decreased in LC neurons obtained from formalin-treated rats. Here, for the first time, we demonstrate that inflammatory pain after 24 h induces hyperexcitability in LC neurons, which in turn may result in changes in noradrenaline release and pain processing.

Highly Efficient Reusable Carboxy Group Functionalized Imidazolium Salts for a Simple and Cost-effective Preparation of pyrano[2,3-d]pyrimidinone Derivatives.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVE: In the current study, environmentally benign and cost-effective procedures were suggested for the preparation of carboxy group functionalized imidazolium salts, including [Cmmim]BF4 - or [Cmmim]Br- as a new, reusable Brønsted acidic ionic liquid (BAIL) catalyst. Then, the catalytic performance of [Cmmim]BF4 - or [Cmmim]Br- were successfully inspected towards the three---components one---pot preparation of pyrano[2,3-d]pyrimidinone derivatives 4a-4q. The mentioned procedures show short reaction times, easy work-up procedure, green conditions, high yields of the products, high potent of recovering, and reusing capability. The current study is useful and adequate for the application and development of imidazolium salts on the basis of green chemistry principles. MATERIALS AND METHODS: An aromatic aldehyde (1 mmol), barbituric acid (1 mmol), and malononitrile (1 mmol) were placed in a round---bottomed flask containing ethanol (5 mL). BAILs A and B (0.1 mmol, 10 mol%) were added to the mixture. The suspension was magnetically stirred at room temperature for an appropriate time (Table 2). After completion of the reaction, which was monitored by TLC (n---hexane:ethyl acetate = 3:1), the pure product was filtered off to separate the catalyst, washed with water, and recrystallized from ethanol to afford the pure compound. After separation of the product, the catalyst was recovered by evaporation of water, washed with Et2O, dried under vacuum for 2 h, and reused for the same reaction. RESULTS: The mentioned procedure shows short reaction times, easy work-up procedure, green conditions, high yields of the products, and high potent of recovering and reusing capability. CONCLUSION: In this study, we unveiled the synthesis of a new acetic acid functionalized ionic liquids [Cmmim]BF4 - BAIL A or [Cmmim]Br- BAIL B and their application for the preparation of pyrano[2,3-d]pyrimidinone derivatives via a three-component reaction among various aromatic aldehydes, barbituric acid, and malononitrile under mild and metal-free conditions. A wide range of pyrano[2,3-d]pyrimidinone derivatives bearing diverse functional groups was obtained in short reaction and excellent yields. Operational simplicity, recoverability, and reusability of catalysts, cheap and chemically stable reagents, high catalytic activity, easy work-up, and the eco-friendly procedure, make this method environmentally benign and cost-effective.

Bio-Fe3O4 Magnetic Nanoparticles Promoted Green Synthesis of thioxo- 1,3-Oxazole Derivatives: Study of Antimicrobial and Antioxidant Activity.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVE: In this work, 1,3-oxazoles were generated using the multicomponent reaction of α-bromo ketones, alkyl (aryl) isothiocyanates, sodium hydride and Fe3O4 MNPs in the water at room temperature in good yields. The nanoparticles generated via the biosynthesis method have potential value in different purposes, such as organic synthesis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: To study the antioxidant ability of some synthesized thioxo-1,3-oxazoles, diphenyl-picrylhydrazine (DPPH) radical trapping and power of ferric reduction testes are employed. Among the studied thioxo-1,3-oxazoles, compound 4b have good power for radical trapping and reduction activity than the standard antioxidants such as BHT and TBHQ. In addition, the antimicrobial activity of some thioxo-1,3-oxazoles was studied, employing the disk diffusion test on Gram-positive bacteria and Gram-negative bacteria. The results of the disk diffusion test showed that compounds 4a, 4b, 4d and 4f prevented bacterial growth. RESULTS: Without employing catalyst, these reactions have low yield and busy mixture. The synthesis of compound 4a as sample reaction has a similar yield in the presence of ZnO-NPs and Fe3O4 MNPs (entry 20 and entry 30), but the removal of catalyst from the mixture of reaction after the completion of the reaction is comfortable in the presence of Fe3O4 MNPs. Structures of compound 4a-4i are confirmed by IR, 1H NMR and 13C NMR mass spectra. CONCLUSION: The reaction of α-bromo ketones, isothiocyanate and sodium hydride in the presence of the catalytic amount of Fe3O4 MNPs in water generates 1,3-oxazole derivatives in good yields. Some of the advantages of performing these reactions with the present procedure are to carry out these reactions in water as a green solvent and simple removal of catalyst.

ZnO-nanocatalyst Promoted the Production of Imidazole Derivatives via four-component Reaction of Aminoacid: Study of Antioxidant and Antimicrobial Activity.

AIM AND OBJECTIVE: In current research, imidazole derivatives are synthesized via a new process of four component reaction of trichloroacetonitrile, amides, alkyl bromides and amino acids catalyzed by zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) as a simple and recyclable catalyst in water at room temperature. Among investigated compounds, compounds 5b have good results relative to butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and 2-tert-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ) as standard antioxidant. The achieved outcomes of disk diffusion experiment showed that these compounds avoided the growth of bacterial. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this research, all chemicals are purchased from Fluka (Buchs, Switzerland) and employed with any purification. For measuring infrared spectroscopy and melting point, a Shimadzu IR-460 spectrometer and Electrothermal 9100 apparatus are utilized respectively. BRUKER DRX-400 AVANCE spectrometer is used for giving the 1H, and 13CNMR spectra at 400.1 and 100 MHz respectively. For recording mass spectra, A FINNIGAN-MAT 8430 spectrometer with an ionization potential of 70 eV was utilized. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) employing a Holland Philips XL30 microscope was used for determination of ZnO nanocomposites morphology. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis at room temperature using a Holland Philips Xpert X-ray powder diffractometer, with CuKα radiation (λ=0.15406 nm), with 2θ ranging from 20 to 80° was employed for characterization of crystalline structure of Fe3O4/CuO nanocomposites. Scherrer's formula; D= 0.9λ/ß cosθ was employed for calculating the average crystallite size where D is the diameter of the nanoparticles, λ (CuKα) =1.5406 Å and ß is the fullwidth at half-maximum of the diffraction lines. A general way to prepare of compounds 5 The trichloroacetonitrile 1 (2 mmol) and amides 2 (2 mmol) mixed with ZnO-NPs (10 mol%) in water (5 mL). after 45 min amino acids 3 (2 mmol) was added to previous mixture at room temperature. After 30 min α-haloketones 4 (2 mmol) was added to mixture and stirred for 3 h. After 3 h, the reaction is completed and TLC confirms progress of the reaction. At last, the solid residue was collected by filtration and cleaned with EtOAC to removing ZnO-NPs and after evaporating solvent and washing solid with Et2O compounds 5 afforded as pure product. RESULTS: Without employing catalyst, these reactions have low yield and busy mixture. The synthesis of compound 5a as sample reaction and displayed the ZnO nanoparticles (10 mol%) is the best catalyst for sample reaction and H2O is the very better than other solvent in sample raection. Structures of 5 are confirmed by IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR mass spectra. CONCLUSION: In summary, imdazole derivatives were produced in excellent yield from the reaction of trichloroacetonitrile, amides, alkyl bromides and amino acids using ZnO-NPs in water at room temperature. In addition, the power of synthesized imidazole as antioxidant was determined by radical trapping of DPPH and power of reducing ferric analyzes. The tested imidazoles display good radical trapping of DPPH but exhibitted moderate FRAP relative to BHT and TBHQ as synthetic antioxidants.The outcomes of disk diffusion experiment exhibite that synthesized imidazole avoided the bacterial growth. The superiorities of this procedure are environmental, high yield of product and low amounts of catalyst and short time of reaction.

A combination of two methods for evaluating the usability of a hospital information system.

BACKGROUND: None of the evaluation methods can identify all the usability problems of information systems. So far, no study has sufficiently investigated the potential of a combination of these methods to identify usability problems. The present study aimed at examining the potential for combining two commonly utilized user-based and expert-based methods to evaluate the usability of a hospital information system. METHODS: Think aloud (TA) and Heuristic evaluation (HE) methods were used to identify the usability problems of two subsystems of the Social Security Electronic System in Iran. To this end, the problems were categorized into five groups based on ISO-Nielsen usability attributes. The Chi-square test was applied to compare the intended methods based on the total number of problems and the number of problems within each group, followed by utilizing the Mann-Whitney U test to compare the mean severity scores of these methods. RESULTS: The evaluation by combining these methods yielded 423 problems of which 75% varied between the methods. The two methods were significantly different in terms of the total number of problems, the number of problems in each usability group, and the mean severity of two satisfaction and efficiency attributes (P < 0.05). However, no significant difference was observed between the two methods based on the mean severity of problems and severity scores related to three usability attributes i.e., effectiveness, learnability, and error prevention (P > 0.05). In addition, the mean severity of problems identified by each method was at the "Major" level. CONCLUSION: Based on the results, although the mean severity scores of the identified problems were not significantly different, these methods identify heterogeneous problems. HE mainly identifies problems related to satisfaction, learnability, and error prevention while TA detects problems related to effectiveness and efficiency attributes. Therefore, using a combination of these two methods can identify a wider range of usability problems.

Withdrawn Notice: Green Synthesis of Furo-1,3-oxazole Derivatives using Fe3O4-MNPs as Efficient Nanocatalyst: Study of Antimicrobial Activity

The article has been withdrawn at the request of the authors and editor of the journal Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening.Bentham Science apologizes to the readers of the journal for any inconvenience this may have caused. BENTHAM SCIENCE DISCLAIMER: It is a condition of publication that manuscripts submitted to this journal have not been published and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere. Furthermore, any data, illustration, structure or table that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained. Plagiarism is strictly forbidden, and by submitting the article for publication the authors agree that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors, if plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered. By submitting a manuscript the authors agree that the copyright of their article is transferred to the publishers if and when the article is accepted for publication.

A PANI-Fe3O4@ZnO nanocomposite: a magnetically separable and applicable catalyst for the synthesis of chromeno-pyrido[d]pyrimidine derivatives.

We report herein green, practical, PANI-Fe3O4@ZnO-nanocomposite-catalyzed cyclocondensation reactions involving 4-aminocoumarin, 1,3-dimethylbarbituric acid, and aromatic aldehydes in an aqueous medium at room temperature to synthesize 9,11-dimethyl-7-aryl-6H-chromeno[3',4':5,6]pyrido[2,3-d]pyrimidine-6,8,10(9H,11H)triones. This research aims to provide an applicable and high-yield protocol that follows the principles of green chemistry, with the use of water as an environmentally benign medium and the PANI-Fe3O4@ZnO nanocomposite as a magnetically recoverable catalyst.

KF/Clinoptilolite Nanoparticles as a Heterogeneous Catalyst for Green Synthesis of pyrido[2,1-a]isoquinolines using Four-Component Reaction of Alkyl Bromides.

OBJECTIVE: KF/Clinoptilolite nanoparticles are employed as a heterogeneous catalyst for the preparation of pyrido[2,1-a]isoquinoline derivatives through a four-component reaction of isoquinoline, two different alkyl bromides and an electron deficient internal alkynes at ambient temperature in water as green solvent. METHODS: In this research, (2,2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) radical trapping and reducing potential of ferric ion experiments was used for determining antioxidant activity of some newly synthesized compounds such as 5a, 5c, 5f and 5g and comparing results with synthetic antioxidants (TBHQ and BHT). RESULTS: Compounds 5a, 5c, 5f and 5g display trace DPPH radical trapping and excellent reducing power of ferric ion. Furthermore, the power of some prepared compounds against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria was proved by employing the disk dispersion experiment. CONCLUSION: The obtained results of disk diffusion test showed that compounds 5a, 5d and 5e prevented the bacterial growth. The reported procedure shows the advantages of clean reaction, high yield and simple purification.

Low-cost nanowired α-MnO2/C as an ORR catalyst in air-cathode microbial fuel cell.

In this work, low cost α-MnO2 nanowires and α-MnO2 nanowires supported on carbon Vulcan (α-MnO2/C) have been synthesized via a simple and facile hydrothermal method for application in microbial fuel cells. The prepared samples have been characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). Electrocatalytic activities of the samples have been evaluated by means of cyclic voltammetry (CV), linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) in a neutral phosphate buffer solution. EIS was performed at different potentials to gain further insight into the kinetic properties of α-MnO2/C. Both catalysts were used in air cathode microbial fuel cells to achieve power densities of 180 and 111 mWm-2 for α-MnO2/C and pristine α-MnO2 nanowires, respectively. α-MnO2/C functions as a good and economical alternative for Pt free catalysts in practical MFC applications, as shown by the findings of stability test and voltage generation cycles in long-term operation of MFC.