Vinylic MIDA Boronates: New Building Blocks for the Synthesis of Aza‐Heterocycles

A two‐step synthesis of structurally diverse pyrrole‐containing bicyclic systems is reported. ortho‐Nitro‐haloarenes coupled with vinylic N‐methyliminodiacetic acid (MIDA) boronates generate ortho‐vinyl‐nitroarenes, which undergo a “metal‐free” nitrene insertion, resulting in a new pyrrole ring. This novel synthetic approach has a wide substrate tolerance and it is applicable in the preparation of more complex “drug‐like” molecules. Interestingly, an ortho‐nitro‐allylarene derivative furnished a cyclic β‐aminophosphonate motif.     

Shell effects in the symmetric-modal fission of pre-actinide nuclei

Mass distributions of fragments in the low-energy fission of nuclei from ¹⁸⁷Ir to ²¹³At have been analysed. This analysis has shown that shell effects in symmetric-mode fragment mass yields from the fission of pre-actinide nuclei could be described if one assumes the existence of two strongly deformed neutron shells in the arising fragments with neutron numbers N₁ ≈ 52 and N₂ ≈ 68. A new method has been proposed for quantitatively describing the mass distributions of the symmetric fission mode for pre-actinides with A ≈ 180–220.     

Fabrication of material-independent morphology gradients for high-throughput applications

Gradient surfaces allow rapid, high-throughput investigations and systematic studies in many disparate fields, including biology, tribology and adhesion. We describe a novel method for the fabrication of material-independent morphology gradients, involving a two-step process of particle erosion followed by a chemical polishing procedure that preferentially removes features with a small radius of curvature as a function of time. Gradients are fabricated on aluminium surfaces, but they may be readily transferred to other materials via a replication technique, which allows for the production of identical roughness gradient samples with any chosen surface chemistry. The gradients have been characterized by means of scanning electron microscopy and optical profilometry. Standard roughness parameters (Ra, Rq, Rz, Sm and Sk) were calculated from optical profilometry data. The roughness has also been assessed over different wavelength windows by means of a fast Fourier transformation approach.     

Enantioselective hydrogenation of diaryl-substituted α,β-unsaturated nitriles

α,β-Unsaturated nitriles can be hydrogenated with enantioselectivities up to 88% ee using chiral ruthenium-diphenylphosphino bisaryl and bisheteroaryl complexes such as ruthenium(II)-BINAP and ruthenium(II)-BINP. Mechanistic investigations indicate that conversion is accelerated by electron-rich ligands and that an additional coordinative group needs be present in order to promote conversion. The chiral products are useful building blocks for the synthesis of histamine H₂ agonists of the arpromidine type.     

Differential effects of synchronous and asynchronous multifinger coactivation on human tactile performance

Background  

Repeated execution of a tactile task enhances task performance. In the present study we sought to improve tactile performance with unattended activation-based learning processes (i.e., focused stimulation of dermal receptors evoking neural coactivation (CA)). Previous studies show that the application of CA to a single finger reduced the stationary two-point discrimination threshold and significantly increased tactile acuity. These changes were accompanied by an expansion of the cortical finger representation in primary somatosensory cortex (SI). Here we investigated the effect of different types of multifinger CA on the tactile performance of each finger of the right hand.     

Local-moment and itinerant antiferromagnetism in the heavy-fermion system Ce(Cu1−xNix)2Ge2

Elastic and inelastic neutron-scattering studies on the system Ce(Cu_1?xNi_x)₂Ge₂ are reported. These measurements are complemented by measurements of the magnetic susceptibility, high-field magnetization, heat capacity, thermal expansion, electrical resistivity and thermopower. The results reveal an interesting T-x phase diagram consisting of two different antiferromagnetic phases for x < 0.2 and 0.2 < x < 0.75, respectively, and a heavy-Fermi-liquid regime at higher Ni concentrations. The experimental results are interpreted in terms of an alloying-induced transition from local-moment to itinerant heavy-fermion magnetism. Fingerprints of this latter phase are a strongly reduced ordered moment and a short incommensurate ordering wave vector, in accord with theoretical predictions. A surprisingly good agreement between theory and experiment is found for x > 0.5. Further experimental evidence for different types of antiferromagnetic ordering derives from a line-shape analysis of the quasielastic neutron-scattering intensity, from magnetization and thermopower experiments.     

Geometric formulas for Smale invariants of codimension two immersions

We give three formulas expressing the Smale invariant of an immersion f of a (4k−1)-sphere into (4k+1)-space. The terms of the formulas are geometric characteristics of any generic smooth map g of any oriented 4k-dimensional manifold, where g restricted to the boundary is an immersion regularly homotopic to f in (6k−1)-space.The formulas imply that if f and g are two non-regularly homotopic immersions of a (4k−1)-sphere into (4k+1)-space then they are also non-regularly homotopic as immersions into (6k−1)-space. Moreover, any generic homotopy in (6k−1)-space connecting f to g must have at least a_k(2k−1)! cusps, where a_k=2 if k is odd and a_k=1 if k is even.