Living Radical Polymerization of Styrene Derivatives Containing Trialkylmetal Groups

Fourteenth group oganometallic styrene derivatives were synthesised by nitroxide-mediated controlled radical polymerization using di-tert butyl nitroxide (A-T) as initiator. This is the first time that nitroxide-controlled radical polymerization has been successfully adapted for the synthesis of new polystyrenes bearing organometallic species with controlled molecular weights and narrow polydispersities. Monomer reactivity ratios were determined in controlled nitroxide-mediated radical copolymerization between styrene and substituted styrene. All experiments permitted the synthesis of new organometallic polymers that will be used for the development of a polymer capsule for Inertial Confinement Fusion Experiments.     

The use of vibrational spectroscopy to study the pathogenesis multiple sclerosis and other neurological conditions

Spectroscopy techniques are valuable tools in biomedical research and have been used extensively in the study of disease. However, neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS) have received little attention and the available spectroscopy studies are limited, both in overall numbers of patients studied and the disease samples considered. MS is a complex immune-mediated disease, with variable clinical courses and limited therapeutic options. This review aims to summarize current literature in the area, demonstrating how spectroscopy techniques can provide valuable information to inform and advance research into the most common neurological condition affecting young adults.     

An unprecedented surface oxidation of polystyrene substrates by wet chemistry under basic conditions

The surface of polystyrene substrates has been modified by wet chemistry consisting of a treatment with sodium hydroxide in a water-methanol solution at 50 degrees C for 15 h, under air atmosphere. The resulting samples were analyzed by XPS and AFM. The surface functional groups (hydroxyl and carboxyl functions) were assayed by radiolabeling. All the results are consistent with a surface oxidation process.     

Retrosynthetic analysis of fullerene C(60): structure, stereochemistry, and calculated stability of C(30) fragments.

The total number of possible retrosynthetic bisections of C(60) leads to nine different isometric C(30) fragments. These molecules include five chiral units, four of which derive from partitions corresponding to four distinct "Coupes du Roi". The energies, curvatures, and homodesmotic stabilization energies of the C(30) fragments are evaluated at the ab initio 6-31G level.     

Josephson junction through a thin ferromagnetic layer: negative coupling

We investigate Josephson coupling through a ferromagnetic thin film using superconductor-insulator-ferromagnet-superconductor planar junctions. Damped oscillations of the critical current are observed as a function of the ferromagnetic layer thickness. We show that they result from the exchange energy gained or lost by a quasiparticle Andreev-reflected at the ferromagnet-superconductor interface. The critical current cancels out at the transition from positive ("0") to negative ("pi") coupling, in agreement with theoretical calculations.     

Defects in a TGBA phase: A theoretical approach

Following our experimental observations of disclination lines in freely suspended droplets and free-standing films (Yu.A. Nastishin et al., Eur. Phys. J. E 5 353 (2001)), topological defects of the twist grain boundary (TGBA) phase are considered according to two aspects: topological and energetical. There are two classes of line defects, disclinations (as in the cholesteric (N*) phase and the liquid vortices phase (NL*), relating to the directors tripod symmetries) and dispirations (relating to the translation-rotation symmetries); there are no topological point defects. Differences between N*, NL* and TGBA disclinations are physical, not topological. The absence of focal conic domains in the TGBA phase is an immediate consequence of the materialization of the helical axis (along the χ-director); the same feature, coupled to the trend to parallelism of the smectic layers, accounts for the predominance of λ-lines. Finally, the presence of defects akin to developable domains is explained in the frame of the leastcurvaturemodel, that requires the introduction of a third type of defects: the densitiesofedgedislocations of the smectic layers. Received 20 February 2002     

Chemoenzymatic synthesis of the microbial elicitor (-)-syringolide via a fructose 1,6-diphosphate aldolase-catalyzed condensation reaction

Syringolide 2, an elicitor of the bacterial plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato which triggers a hypersensitive defense response in resistant soybean plants, has been synthesized in five steps via a fructose 1,6-diphosphate aldolase reaction.     

Current partition in multiprobe conductors in the presence of slowly oscillating external potentials

In the presence of a static potential drop a carrier stream incident at a contact of the sample is partitioned into the other contacts according to the transmission probabilities of the sample. The bare response to oscillating potentials, on the other hand, violates current conservation due to the piling up of unscreened charges in the sample, and has to be modified by taking the induced screening potential into account. We present a novel derivation of the conductance response to oscillating external chemical potentials, find the response to an arbitrary internal potential in terms of functional derivatives with respect to the local potential of the scattering matrix of the conductor, and determine the screening potential for slowly oscillating potentials from the condition of local charge neutrality. We find that the current partitioning depends on ratios of local densities of states which reflect the injection and emission properties of the contacts of the sample.