Boron-Nitrogen Compounds 83 [1]. Experimental and Theoretical Studies on Monomeric Iminoboranes

Nuclear magnetic resonance and vibrational spectroscopic data support the existence of liner C?N? B skeleton in monomeric iminoboranes of the type R₂C?N? BR. This allene-like arrangement of the central moiety of the compounds does not seem to enhance the N? B bond strength by interaction of this bond with the vicinal C?N bond. Rather, in the case of R′ being a hydrocarbon group, the nature of the N? B bond is similar to that found in (monoamino) diorganyl-boranes, R₂N? Br. Similarly, (CF₃)₂C?N? B[N(CH₃)₂]₂ may ve viewed as a trisaminoborane. However, the rigid C?N? BN₂ unit makes this compound colored and the electronic structure of the species was studied; theoretical and experimental data are in good agreement.     

Reaction of singlet oxygen with trans-4-propenylanisole. Formation Of

We report the effects of added acid in the reaction of singlet oxygen with trans-4-propenylanisole (1). We provide evidence that solvent acidity modifies the behavior of the transient intermediates. Relative to reactions in aprotic solvent, enhanced dioxetane concentrations are observed in MeOH and in nonprotic solvents with acid. We suggest a new mechanism that invokes a proton transfer from MeOH and benzoic acid to perepoxide (2) and zwitterion (3) intermediates.     

Electroreduction of oxygen on Pd catalysts supported on Ti-modified carbon

Carbon supports modified with well dispersed anatase TiO₂ (C–Ti-X; X (0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1.0) represents mass ratio of Ti precursor to carbon) were synthesized with various Ti loadings and used to support Pd catalysts for oxygen reduction. The anatase nanoparticles increased in size with increasing Ti loading. Pd dispersion improved with increasing Ti loading up to the C–Ti-0.75, which resulted in the best catalytic activity. Although the Pd dispersion was lowest on the C–Ti-1.0, it showed better catalytic performance than the catalysts supported on C–Ti-0.25 and C–Ti-0.5. At 0.8 V (vs. RHE), the best catalytic activity achieved was respectively 2.7 and 2.7 times the mass and specific activities of Pd supported on un-modified carbon. The interaction between Pd and highly dispersed TiO₂ is believed to improve the catalytic activity of Pd supported on TiO₂-modified carbons.     

Observation of insulating–insulating monoclinic structural transition in macro‐sized VO2 single crystals [Phys. Status Solidi RRL 5, No. 3, R107–R109 (2011)]

In our article, we reported the observation of monoclinic M2 to M1 structural phase transition in VO₂ single crystal near the temperature of ～49 °C. However, the re‐examination of Laue patterns reveals that previously defined monoclinic M1 and M2 phases can be interpreted as monoclinic M2 and triclinic T phases instead. Careful experimental geometry calibration and further refinement of the lattice parameter ratios and angles show that monoclinic M2 and triclinic T phases fit better with the experimental data. On the other hand, our previous misidentification of the insulating phases does NOT affect the conclusions of our article. (© 2015 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A nondestructive method for estimation of the fracture toughness of CrMoV rotor steels based on ultrasonic nonlinearity

The objective of this paper is to develop a nondestructive method for estimating the fracture toughness (K(IC)) of CrMoV steels used as the rotor material of steam turbines in power plants. To achieve this objective, a number of CrMoV steel samples were heat-treated, and the fracture appearance transition temperature (FATT) was determined as a function of aging time. Nonlinear ultrasonics was employed as the theoretical basis to explain the harmonic generation in a damaged material, and the nonlinearity parameter of the second harmonic wave was the experimental measure used to be correlated to the fracture toughness of the rotor steel. The nondestructive procedure for estimating the K(IC) consists of two steps. First, the correlations between the nonlinearity parameter and the FATT are sought. The FATT values are then used to estimate K(IC) using the K(IC) versus excess temperature (i.e., T-FATT) correlation that is available in the literature for CrMoV rotor steel.     

Vertex operators for non-simply-laced algebras

A vertex operator construction is given for the level one representations of the affine Kac-Moody algebras associated with non-simply-laced finite-dimensional Lie algebras, using free boson and interacting fermion fields. The fermion fields are constructed explicitly and a detailed discussion is given of the theory of the cocycles necessary for this and other vertex operator constructions. The construction is related in detail to the folding of Dynkin diagrams and a generalisation of it yields Freudenthal's magic square.On leave from the Weizmann Institute, Israel     

Fermions and octonions

We analyse further the algebraic structure of dependent fermions, namely ones interrelated by the vertex operator construction. They are associated with special sorts of lattice systems which are introduced and discussed. The explicit evaluation of the relevant cocycles leads to the result that the operator product expansion of the fermions is related in a precise way to one or another of the division algebras given by complex numbers, quaternions or octonions. The latter case is seen to be realised in the light cone formalism of superstring theory.