Initiation process of L‐lactide polymerization carried out with zirconium(IV) acetylacetonate

Lactide polymerization using zirconium(IV) acetylacetonate [Zr(acac)₄] as an initiator was investigated. In the reaction between Zr(acac)₄ and the monomer molecule, lactide deprotonation and the release of acetylacetone occurred. The structures of the obtained complexes were analyzed with high‐resolution NMR spectroscopy. A computational method was used to calculate the hypothetical structures. The role of the obtained complexes in the initiation of polymerization and the reaction of chain growth was proposed. The influence of the reaction temperature on the structures of the complexes was investigated. Polylactide chain growth proceeded by an insertion‐coordination mechanism. The polymer chain grew on one ligand, which was formed in advance from a deprotonated lactide. The molecular masses of the obtained polymers were the same as the theoretical masses and were directly proportional to the reaction conversion. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 42: 1886–1900, 2004     

Uniform persistence for nonautonomous and random parabolic Kolmogorov systems

The purpose of this paper is to investigate uniform persistence for nonautonomous and random parabolic Kolmogorov systems via the skew-product semiflows approach. It is first shown that the uniform persistence of the skew-product semiflow associated with a nonautonomous (random) parabolic Kolmogorov system implies that of the system. Various sufficient conditions in terms of the so-called unsaturatedness and/or Lyapunov exponents for uniform persistence of the skew-product semiflows are then provided. Among others, it is shown that if the associated skew-product semiflow has a global attractor and its restriction to the boundary of the state space has a Morse decomposition which is unsaturated or whose external Lyapunov exponents are positive, then it is uniformly persistent. More specific conditions are discussed for uniform persistence in n-species, particularly 3-species, random competitive systems.     

Determination of Emodin and Phenolic Acids in the Petioles of Rheum undulatum and Rheum rhaponticum

JPC – Journal of Planar Chromatography – Modern TLC - Emodin and twelve phenolic acids (ellagic, gallic, protocatechuic, homoprotocatechuic, caffeic, p-hydroxybenzoic, p-coumaric,...     

Making Use of Incomplete Observations for Regression in Bivariate Normal Model

Two estimates of the regression coefficient in bivariate normal distribution are considered: the usual one based on a sample and a new one making use of additional observations of one of the variables. They are compared with respect to variance. The same is done for two regression lines. The conclusion is that the additional observations are worth using only when the sample is very small.     

Long time behaviour of a flow in infinite pipe conforming to slip boundary conditions

The paper analyses long time behaviour of solutions of the Navier–Stokes equations in a two‐dimensional pipe‐like domain. The system is studied with perfect slip boundary conditions with arbitrary inflow conditions at infinity. The main results show the existence of global in time solutions and of an attractor for the dynamical system generated by the model. The paper also establishes an upper bound for the Hausdorff dimension of the attractor. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Acyclovir terminated thiophosphate dendrimers

An efficient synthesis of antiviral dendritic prodrug candidates, water-soluble, polyanionic conjugates of 1st and 2nd generation thiophosphate dendrimers with acyclovir, is described.     

Searching for new conditions for fermion N-representability

New elements of the dual cone of the set of fermion N-representable 2-density operators are proposed. So far, the explicit form of the corresponding necessary conditions for N-representability is obtained for N = 3. In this case the new condition is stronger than the known B- and C-conditions for 3-representability. The results provide evidence that in the spectral decomposition of the N-representable 2-density operator there exists an intrinsic relation between the eigenvalue and the corresponding eigenfunction.     

Thermal Analysis in Examination of Reduction of Blast Furnace Pellets

This paper presents applications of thermal analysis to observe the course of reduction of acidic pellets, metallurgical substances whose reducibility and strength are basic parameters of use in blast furnace processes. Both parameters depend on the mineral composition of the samples. The investigations included determination of the chemical and phase compositions of the initial samples and reduction products. Research was conducted on acidic pellets from Połtawa (Poland), applied in the T. Sendzimir Steelworks (Poland), in comparison with pellets from Brazil, Canada and Lebedyn (Russia). This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.