Search results for "analytical"

Antibacterial and antifungal activities of Otanthus maritimus (L.) Hoffmanns.Link essential oil from Sicily.

2013

The chemical composition of the essential oil obtained from the flowers of Otanthus maritimus L., a perennial plant growing wild in maritime sands in the Mediterranean region, was investigated by GC and GC-MS analyses. Totally 66 were identified. The oil was dominated by the high content of monoterpene compounds, especially oxygenated monoterpenes which accounted for 73.1%. The most abundant components were yomogi alcohol (20.8%), camphor (15.8%), artemisyl acetate (15.3%) and artemisia alcohol (13.7%). The oil was tested against two Gram (+) and six Gram (-) bacterial strains, both American Type Culture Collection standard strains and clinically isolated (CI), one potentially pathogenic ye…

Midinfrared FT-IR as a Tool for Monitoring Herbaceous Biomass Composition and Its Conversion to Furfural

2015

A semiquantitative analysis by means of midinfrared FT-IR spectroscopy was tuned for the simultaneous determination of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin in industrial crops such as giant reed (Arundo donaxL.) and switchgrass (Panicum virgatumL.). Ternary mixtures of pure cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin were prepared and a direct correlation area/concentration was achieved for cellulose and lignin, whereas indirect correlations were found for hemicellulose quantification. Good correspondences between the values derived from our model and those reported in the literature or obtained according to the official Van Soest method were ascertained. Average contents of 40–45% of cellulose, 2…

Wireless Acoustic Sensor Networks and Applications

2017

Hair Mercury Levels Detection in Fishermen from Sicily (Italy) by ICP-MS Method after Microwave-Assisted Digestion

2015

A number of ninety-six hair samples from Sicilian fishermen were examined for total mercury detection by an Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) method. The mercury levels obtained were compared with mercury levels of 96 hair samples from a control group, in order to assess potential exposure to heavy metals of Sicilian fishermen due to fish consumption and closeness to industrial activities. Furthermore, the mercury levels obtained from hair samples were sorted by sampling area in order to verify the possible risks linked to the different locations. The overall mean concentration in the hair of the population of fishermen was6.45±7.03 μg g−1, with a highest value in a fish…

Artificial Intelligence for Cybersecurity: A Systematic Mapping of Literature

2020

Due to the ever-increasing complexities in cybercrimes, there is the need for cybersecurity methods to be more robust and intelligent. This will make defense mechanisms to be capable of making real-time decisions that can effectively respond to sophisticated attacks. To support this, both researchers and practitioners need to be familiar with current methods of ensuring cybersecurity (CyberSec). In particular, the use of artificial intelligence for combating cybercrimes. However, there is lack of summaries on artificial intelligent methods for combating cybercrimes. To address this knowledge gap, this study sampled 131 articles from two main scholarly databases (ACM digital library and IEEE…

Modelling and prediction of retention in high-performance liquid chromatography by using neural networks

1995

Multi-layer feed-forward neural networks trained with an error back-propagation algorithm have been used to model retention behaviour of liquid chromatography as a function of the composition of the mobile phases. Conventional hydro-organic and micellar mobile phases were considered. Accurate retention modelling and prediction have been achieved using mobile phases defined by two, three and four parameters. With micellar mobile phases, the parameters involved included the concentrations of surfactant and organic modifier, pH and temperature. It is shown that neural networks provide a competitive tool to model varied inherent nonlinear relationships of retention behaviour with respect to the…

A 4K-Input High-Speed Winner-Take-All (WTA) Circuit with Single-Winner Selection for Change-Driven Vision Sensors

2019

Winner-Take-All (WTA) circuits play an important role in applications where a single element must be selected according to its relevance. They have been successfully applied in neural networks and vision sensors. These applications usually require a large number of inputs for the WTA circuit, especially for vision applications where thousands to millions of pixels may compete to be selected. WTA circuits usually exhibit poor response-time scaling with the number of competitors, and most of the current WTA implementations are designed to work with less than 100 inputs. Another problem related to the large number of inputs is the difficulty to select just one winner, since many competitors ma…

A facile microsynthesis of 14C-labelled picene

1984

Microscale Wittig olefination of commercially available [7-14C]-benzal dehyde of high specific radioactivity with aryl bromomethyl phosphonium salt and subsequent oxidative photocyclisation affords pure 14C-labelled picene in efficient yield.

Crowdsourced analysis of fungal growth and branching on microfluidic platforms

2021

Fungal hyphal growth and branching are essential traits that allow fungi to spread and proliferate in many environments. This sustained growth is essential for a myriad of applications in health, agriculture, and industry. However, comparisons between different fungi are difficult in the absence of standardized metrics. Here, we used a microfluidic device featuring four different maze patterns to compare the growth velocity and branching frequency of fourteen filamentous fungi. These measurements result from the collective work of several labs in the form of a competition named the “Fungus Olympics.” The competing fungi included five ascomycete species (ten strains total), two basidiomycete…

Oxygen depletion in dense molecular clouds: a clue to a low O2 abundance?

2011

Context: Dark cloud chemical models usually predict large amounts of O2, often above observational limits. Aims: We investigate the reason for this discrepancy from a theoretical point of view, inspired by the studies of Jenkins and Whittet on oxygen depletion. Methods: We use the gas-grain code Nautilus with an up-to-date gas-phase network to study the sensitivity of the molecular oxygen abundance to the oxygen elemental abundance. We use the rate coefficient for the reaction O + OH at 10 K recommended by the KIDA (KInetic Database for Astrochemistry) experts. Results: The updates of rate coefficients and branching ratios of the reactions of our gas-phase chemical network, especially N + C…