Attractive educational strategies in teaching and learning chemistry

The main objectives of this article is to find attractive and appropriate educational strategies and methodologies that could be used in teaching and learning chemistry in order to attract new generations to appreciate studying the most important discipline in science; chemistry. Chemistry is considered as the central backbone for science since its concepts and theories can explain all the scientific phenomena. Since science is the core of the human sustainability, therefore improvement of chemical education would definitely result in improvement of social sustainability. Attractive educational strategies in teaching and learning chemistry can be achieved by using attractive and interactive appropriate methodologies such as Systemic Approach (SATLC), E-learning, M-learning, and any other tools in which modern technologies are integrated

A one-pot Synthesis of Some New Heterocyclic Compounds Derived from Chalcones and Study of their Antitumor and Antimicrobial Activities

The aim of the present work is to efficiently synthesize promising novel antitumor and antimicrobial active heterocyclic compounds from chalcones 1a and 1b as a precursor which contain naphthalene moiety and indole or piperonal moiety, respectively, using conventional, ultrasonic and microwave irradiation techniques. The best yields and purity were afforded with the microwave irradiation technique. Reaction of 1a and 1b with the appropriate reagent gave the corresponding pyrazolines 2a, 2b, pyrimidine-2-thioneses 3a, 3b, oxazepines 4a, 4b, diazepines 5a, 5b, triazolo-pyrimidines 6a, 6b, and pyrimidine-2-thiols 7a, 7b derivatives. Compounds 7a, 7b were used to produce 8a, 8b. Moreover, pyrimidine-2-thione 3a was used to synthesize pyrimidin-2-ylthioacetic acid 9a, and 2-hydrazinylpyrido[2,3-d]pyrimidine derivative 10a which has been used as a functionalizing agent to produce compounds 11a-14a. The structural formulas of the synthesized compounds were confirmed by their spectral data; FT-IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR and MS. Compounds 3a, 5a, 7a, 13a showed a very high activity as antitumor, whereas compounds 4a, 6a, and 13a showed high activity as antibacterial and antifungal agents

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Synthesis of Doped Sol-Gel Glasses as Adsorbents for Water Treatment

Doped sol-gel glasses of thiourea (THU), urea (U), n-propoylamine (PA), iso-propylamine (IPA), and 2-methoxyaniline (AN) were prepared and treated by two methods, thermal and microwave (MW) irradiation. The optical properties and particle sizes of the as-synthesized doped sol-gels and plain sol-gel (P) were measured. The sol-gels were then tested for their capacity to adsorb methylene blue dye (MB) and remove it from aqueous solutions. The highest removal efficiencies were exhibited by PA, IPA, and THU which were prepared by either the thermal or MW method. Amongst all the tested adsorbents, the thermally-prepared PA yielded the highest removal of over 95% for 12.5 mg/L of MB, and about 75% for 6.5 mg/L of MB. The MW-prepared PA showed the second highest removal efficiencies, while IPA, prepared thermally or by MW, showed comparable results to its PA counterpart. This behavior could be attributed to the higher basicity of aliphatic amines relative to aromatic amines, which resulted in increased interaction between the lone pair of electrons on amino nitrogen and MB. On the other hand, the interaction between U or THU and MB is suggested to have possibly occurred via electrostatic attraction or redox reaction between them. The characteristic Fourier Infrared (FTIR) spectra of PA and IPA before and after adsorption suggest that the C=O, N-H, and Si-OH groups, among others, could be involved in adsorption

Nickel (II) complexes of 3-acetyl-4, 5-dihydro-1, 2, 4-triazole hydrazones

3-Acetyl-1,2,4-triazole hydrazones (3b,c) and methylhydrazone (4d) were prepared by reacting triazoles (1b–d) with an excess of hydrazines at room temperature. Square planar nickel(II) complexes (8b,c) of (3b,c) were obtained from their reaction with Ni(OAc)2 in a 2:1 mol ratio in EtOH at room temperature. The spectral data suggest structures (8b,c) for the obtained complexes, which result from ring opening of the triazole ring followed by recyclization to give the 5-arylhydrazono-2,3-dihydro-4H-1,2,4-triazine ligand (7b,c). The reaction of triazole methylhydrazone (4d) with Ni(OAc)2 in EtOH resulted, however, in the formation of the starting triazole (1d). All new compounds were characterized by elemental analysis, i.r., 1H-n.m.r. 13C-n.m.r. and hrms

Metal Complexes of 6-Acetyl-4-aryl-2-ethoxycarbonyl-1, 2, 3, 4-tetrahydro-1, 2, 4, 5-tetrazine Oximes

Nitrilimines (5a-c) react with 1-ethoxycarbonyl-1-methylhydrazine (6) to give the corresponding 3-acetyl-1, 2, 4, 5-tetrazines (8a-c). Oximes of these tetrazines (9a-c) and their Pd (II)(10a) and Ni (II)(11b) complexes were prepared and characterized using IR, MS, NMR and electronic spectra

Ring transformation and complex formation of 3-acetyl-4,5-dihydro-1,2,4-triazole oximes

Abstract Oximic 1,2,4-triazole ligands 2a-e were prepared from the reaction of 3-acetyl-4,5-dihydro-1H-1,2,4-triazoles 1a-e with hydroxylamine hydrochloride at room temperature. At higher temperatures, the reaction afforded, however, the novel ring transformation product 4-amino-2-(4-chlorophenyl)-5-methyl-2H-1,2,3,6-oxatriazine 3. The reaction of the ligands 2a-e with nickel (II) and palladium (II) acetates in ethanol at room temperature yielded the respective square planar complexes 5a-e, 6a,e. X-ray structure determination of one of these complexes (5a) revealed that metallation led to unexpected ring transformation of the triazole ligand. It is probable that such ring transformation generated the imidazole-N-oxide intermediate 4a which coordinated to Ni(II) ion, and the 4N-donor set comprises both imidazole nitrogen and arylhydrazone nitrogen. The whole process is associated with loss of one hydrogen molecule and formation of one new p-bond. The new compounds were characterized by elemental analysis, IR, 1 H NMR, 13 C NMR and HRMS