A conformational study of [3.3](3,5)pyridinophane

A variable temperature ¹H NMR study of the [3.3](3,5)pyridinophane indicated that the syn(chair/chair) is more stable than syn(chair/boat) by 0.2 kcal/mol in solution, whereas the trimethylene bridges show disorder even at −150 °C in the solid state. A transition state search by ab initio MO calculations suggested two competitive conformational changes for syn(chair/chair)-syn(chair/boat) conversion via a bridge wobble or a ring inversion in the [3.3](3,5)pyridinophane.     

Synthesis of [125I]‐, [2H]‐, and [3H]‐Labeled 3‐Iodothyronamine (T1AM)

3‐Iodothyronamine (T₁AM) is a novel metabolite of thyroid hormone. In HEK‐293 cells expressing an orphan G‐protein coupled receptor, the trace amine receptor, T₁AM, potently increased cAMP accumulation. In mice, T₁AM rapidly induced hypothermia and bradycardia within minutes of administration. These results suggest the existence of a new signaling pathway, the stimulation of which leads to rapid physiological and behavioral consequences. Isotope‐labeled T₁AM derivatives would be useful to study the biology and pharmacology of T₁AM. Herein we describe efficient syntheses of [¹²⁵I]‐, [²H]‐, and [³H]‐T₁AM.     

Spinodal patterns indicating unstable regime of polymer crystallization

It has been considered that crystallization of polymer from melt proceeds via the coexistence of molten matrix and growing crystals that have once overcome a nucleation barrier to a critical size. The nucleation process has often been explained analogously with so-called nucleation and growth (NG) behavior of the phase separation of a binary mixture in metastable conditions, although the crystallization in one-component polymer is not a real component separation but a phase transition. Among the mechanisms of polymer crystallization, the topic is whether a liquid–liquid transition between states of different densities within one-component polymers takes place before the aforementioned nucleation process. The liquid–liquid transition between states, which is probably driven by chain orientation, is also categorized into NG and the controversial spinodal decomposition (SD) type processes depending on the quenching depth. This article provides the optical microscopic observations that favor the occurrence of the SD-like process when a one-component polymer melt is very rapidly quenched below a stability limit, including a drastic morphological change from a spherulitic to a spinodal pattern at the critical (or spinodal) temperature. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 1817–1822, 2004     

QCD phase transition with strange quark in wilson formalism for fermions

The nature of QCD phase transition is studied with massless up and down quarks and a light strange quark, using the Wilson formalism for quarks on a lattice with the temporal direction extensionN _t=4. We find that the phase transition is of first order for the physical strange quark mass.     

Dynamics of deuterated polystyrene-protonated butadiene diblock copolymer micelles by neutron spin echo

We report on neutron spin-echo (NSE) measurements on deuterated styrene-protonated butadiene diblock copolymer micelles in deuterated n-decane to investigate the dynamics of butadiene blocks in the corona. Before the NSE measurements, we performed small-angle neutron-scattering (SANS) measurements on the micelles to evaluate the structure to give a basis for the discussion of the dynamics. In the SANS study, we have estimated the form factor P(Q) in terms of a hard-core-shell model from the direct evaluation without curve-fitting procedure while a more flexible core-shell model with the structure factor S(Q) gives a better fit to the observed data. The observed normalized intermediate scattering function I(Q,t)/I(Q,0) by NSE does not show the collective motions corresponding to the so-called breathing mode but rather single chain motion (Zimm modes) for both the 2 and 20 wt % micelle solutions. The Zimm decay rate Gamma(z) in the micelle solution is slow compared with that in the homopolymer solution. This slowing down is assigned to the effective high concentration in the corona. The differences in Gamma(z) between concentrated solutions and the 20% micellar solution are attributed to end-tethering effect of the corona chains on the core surface. The possible reasons why the breathing mode was not observed in the present micelle system are discussed on the basis of chain density in the corona.     

Intramolecular excimer of DI(1-pyrenylmethyleneoxycarbonyl) alkanes

Intramolecular excimer emission of a series of di(1-pyrenylmethyleneoxycarbonyl)alkanes (n = 0–22) has been studied under photostationary conditions. The intramolecular excimer formation rate constant decreases monotonously with increasing number of methylene units of the chains in the low temperature region. The temperature dependence of the rate constant for each sample was studied to give an apparent activation energy of ca. 5 kcal/mol.