Catalyst- and organic solvent-free synthesis of thioacids in water

Thioacids and thioamino acids were synthesized in excellent yields from readily available acyl benzotriazoles and sodium hydrosulfide in water at room temperature. The new methodology features mild reaction conditions, high yields, short reaction times, and does not involve the use of organic solvents or bases. The reaction is eco-friendly, and the workup procedure is simple and does not require chromatographic separation.     

Naturally occurring antitubercular cyclic peptides

The antibiotic pipeline has failed to keep pace with the rise of multidrug resistant tuberculosis and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis pathogens. Naturally occurring peptides provide a rich source of lead compounds for developing novel pharmaceuticals with high selectivity and potency. Given the vast number of naturally-occurring bioactive cyclic peptides identified so far, the following digest highlights several cyclic peptides, discovered in the preceding decade, that exhibit promising activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis.     

The inverse problem in the case of bound states

We investigate the inverse problem for bound states in the D = 3 dimensional space. The potential is assumed to be local and spherically symmetric. The present method is based on relationships connecting the moments of the ground state density to the lowest energy of each state of angular momentum ?. The reconstruction of the density ρ(r) from its moments is achieved by means of the series expansion of its Fourier transform F(q). The large q-behavior is described by Padé approximants. The accuracy of the solution depends on the number of known moments. The uniqueness is achieved if this number is infinite. In practice, however, an accuracy better than 1% is obtained with a set of about 15 levels.The method is tested on a simple example, and applied to three different spectra.     

The two-level element free Galerkin method for MHD flow at high Hartmann numbers

In this Letter, a new element free Galerkin method, namely the two-level element free Galerkin method, is presented for solving the governing equations of steady magnetohydrodynamic duct flow. Because this element free Galerkin method makes use of the nodal point configurations which do not require a mesh, therefore it differs from FEM-like approaches by avoiding the need of meshing, a very demanding task for complicated geometry problems. Another distinguished feature of the proposed method is the resolving capability of high gradients near the layer regions without local or adaptive refinements. Numerical results indicate that no matter how large the Hartmann number is, this method has the ability to produce the satisfactory results for the velocity and the magnetic field simultaneously. That is to say, the presented method has some excellent properties, such as better stability and accuracy.     

The effect of thermal annealing on the structural and mechanical properties of a-C:H thin films prepared by the CFUBM magnetron sputtering method

a-C:H films were prepared by closed-field unbalanced magnetron (CFUBM) sputtering on silicon substrates using argon (Ar) and acetylene (C₂H₂) gases, and the effects of post-annealing temperature on structural and mechanical properties were investigated. Films were annealed at temperatures ranging from 300 °C to 700 °C in increments of 200 °C using rapid thermal annealing equipment in vacuum ambient. Variations in microstructure were examined using Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Surface and mechanical properties were investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM), nano-indentation, residual stress tester, and nano-scratch tester. We found that the mechanical properties of a-C:H films deteriorated with increased annealing temperature.     

Chemical composition and insecticidal activity of the essential oil from Helichrysum faradifani endemic to Madagascar

Helichrysum faradifani (Asteraceae) is a perennial shrub growing in rocky and sandy places of Madagascar. The plant is used in the Malagasy traditional medicine as a wound-healing agent, disinfectant and for the treatment of syphilis, diarrhea, cough and headache. In the present work, we analysed the chemical composition of the essential oil distilled from the aerial parts of H. faradifani by GC-MS and evaluated its insecticidal activity against 2nd, 3rd and 4th instar larvae of the lymphatic filariasis vector Culex quinquefasciatus by acute toxicity assays. The most sensitive were 2nd instar (LC₅₀ = 85.7 μL L^?1) larvae. For the 3rd and 4th instar larvae, the estimated LC₅₀ were 156.8 and 134.1 μL L^?1, respectively. Monoterpene hydrocarbons (51.6%) were the major fraction of the essential oil, with the bicyclic α-fenchene (35.6%) as the predominant component. Sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (34.0%) were the second major group characterising the oil, with γ-curcumene (17.7%) as the most abundant component.     

On the determination of the potential function from given orbits

The paper deals with the problem of finding the field of force that generates a given (N ? 1)-parametric family of orbits for a mechanical system with N degrees of freedom. This problem is usually referred to as the inverse problem of dynamics. We study this problem in relation to the problems of celestial mechanics. We state and solve a generalization of the Dainelli and Joukovski problem and propose a new approach to solve the inverse Suslov’s problem. We apply the obtained results to generalize the theorem enunciated by Joukovski in 1890, solve the inverse Stäckel problem and solve the problem of constructing the potential-energy function U that is capable of generating a bi-parametric family of orbits for a particle in space. We determine the equations for the sought-for function U and show that on the basis of these equations we can define a system of two linear partial differential equations with respect to U which contains as a particular case the Szebehely equation. We solve completely a special case of the inverse dynamics problem of constructing U that generates a given family of conics known as Bertrand’s problem. At the end we establish the relation between Bertrand’s problem and the solutions to the Heun differential equation. We illustrate our results by several examples.     

Integral invariants for non-barotropic flows in a four dimensional space time manifold

Properties of non-barotropic flows are described using Lie derivatives of differential forms in a Euclidean four dimensional space-time manifold. Vanishing of the Lie derivative implies that the corresponding physical quantity remains invariant along the integral curves of the flow. Integral invariants of non-barotropic perfect and viscous flows are studied using the concepts of relative and absolute invariance of forms. The four dimensional expressions for the rate of change of the generalized circulation, generalized vorticity flux, generalized helicity and generalized parity in the case of ideal and viscous non-barotropic flows are thereby obtained.