Approaches to Modeling Bed Drag in Pine Forest Litter for Wildland Fire Applications

Transport in Porous Media - Modeling flow in vegetative fuel beds is a key component in any detailed physics-based tool for simulating wildland fire dynamics. Current approaches for drag modeling,...     

Synthesis of heterocycles from arylacetonitriles: Powerful tools for medicinal chemists

Arylacetonitriles are versatile building blocks for the construction of heterocyclic scaffolds in medicinal chemistry. These intermediates are able to engage in a variety of synthetic transformations, giving rise to diverse biologically active structures. This digest focuses on recent applications of this synthetic methodology by drug discovery teams across several disease areas, with an emphasis on different reaction types.     

Local Dispersive and Strichartz Estimates for the Schrödinger Operator on the Heisenberg Group

It was proved by Bahouri et al. [9] that the Schrödinger equation on the Heisenberg group $\mathbb{H}^d,$ involving the sublaplacian, is an example of a totally non-dispersive evolution equation: for this reason global dispersive estimates cannot hold. This paper aims at establishing local dispersive estimates on $\mathbb{H}^d$ for the linear Schrödinger equation, by a refined study of the Schrödinger kernel $S_t$ on $\mathbb{H}^d.$ The sharpness of these estimates is discussed through several examples. Our approach, based on the explicit formula of the heat kernel on $\mathbb{H}^d$ derived by Gaveau [19], is achieved by combining complex analysis and Fourier-Heisenberg tools. As a by-product of our results we establish local Strichartz estimates and prove that the kernel $S_t$ concentrates on quantized horizontal hyperplanes of $\mathbb{H}^d.$     

Deformation und Stabilität windbeanspruchter Kühlturmschalen

Übersicht Nach der Formulierung des Deformations- und des Stabilitätsproblems auf der Grundlage ursprünglich nicht-konformer, dreiecksförmiger, gekrümmter finiter Elemente wird zunächst das Deformationsproblem für eine ausgeführte Kühlturmschale numerisch gelöst. Die nachfolgende Stabilitätsanalyse dieser Kühlturmschale zeigt gute Übereinstimmung der mittels der Methode der finiten Elemente errechneten Beulsicherheit mit dem aufgrund des Munganschen Beulkriteriums erhaltenen Kleinstwert der Beulsicherheit.

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Summary Following the formulation of the deformation and stability problem on the basis of originally non-conforming triangular curved finite elements with the help of a variational principle with subsidiary conditions, the deformation problem is solved numerically for an existing cooling tower shell. The subsequent stability analysis of this cooling tower shell shows relatively good agreement of the buckling safety computed by means of the finite element method and the minimum of buckling safety obtained with the help of Mungan's stability criterion.

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Diese Arbeit wurde mit Unterstützung der Cooling Tower Division von Zurn Industries, Tampa, Florida, USA, begonnen und mit Unterstützung Seitens des Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung, Wien, zu Ende geführt. Beiden Sponsoren Sei an dieser Stelle aufrichtig gedankt. Der erstgenannte Autor ist darüber hinaus der Max Kade Foundation, New York, N. Y., für die Finanzierung Seines Studienaufenthaltes an der Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., im Rahmen dessen er mit der Thematik dieses Aufsatzes konfrontiert wurde, zu Dank verpflichtet. Aus demselben Grund sagt der dritte Autor für ein NATO Fellowship Dank.     

Synthesis Of 5-tert-Butyl Benzo[b]thiophene-2-carboxylic Acid

The title compound was prepared from 4-tert-butyl cyclohexanone in high yield by a simple three step procedure.     

Pigmentation Chemistry and Radical‐Based Collagen Degradation in Alkaptonuria and Osteoarthritic Cartilage

Alkaptonuria (AKU) is a rare disease characterized by high levels of homogentisic acid (HGA); patients suffer from tissue ochronosis: dark brown pigmentation, especially of joint cartilage, leading to severe early osteoarthropathy. No molecular mechanism links elevated HGA to ochronosis; the pigment's chemical identity is still not known, nor how it induces joint cartilage degradation. Here we give key insight on HGA‐derived pigment composition and collagen disruption in AKU cartilage. Synthetic pigment and pigmented human cartilage tissue both showed hydroquinone‐resembling NMR signals. EPR spectroscopy showed that the synthetic pigment contains radicals. Moreover, we observed intrastrand disruption of collagen triple helix in pigmented AKU human cartilage, and in cartilage from patients with osteoarthritis. We propose that collagen degradation can occur via transient glycyl radicals, the formation of which is enhanced in AKU due to the redox environment generated by pigmentation.     

An N-Heterocyclic-Carbene-Derived Distonic Radical Cation

We present the discovery of a novel radical cation formed through one-electron oxidation of an N-heterocyclic carbene–carbodiimide (NHC–CDI) zwitterionic adduct. This compound possesses a distonic electronic structure (spatially separate spin and charge regions) and displays persistence under ambient conditions. We demonstrate its application in a redox-flow battery exhibiting minimal voltage hysteresis, a flat voltage plateau, high Coulombic efficiency, and no performance decay for at least 100 cycles. The chemical tunability of NHCs and CDIs suggests that this approach could provide a general entry to redox-active NHC–CDI adducts and their persistent radical ions for various applications.     

Hybrid phospholipid bilayer coatings for separations of cationic proteins in capillary zone electrophoresis

Protein separations in CZE suffer from nonspecific adsorption of analytes to the capillary surface. Semipermanent phospholipid bilayers have been used to minimize adsorption, but must be regenerated regularly to ensure reproducibility. We investigated the formation, characterization, and use of hybrid phospholipid bilayers (HPBs) as more stable biosurfactant capillary coatings for CZE protein separations. HPBs are formed by covalently modifying a support with a hydrophobic monolayer onto which a self‐assembled lipid monolayer is deposited. Monolayers prepared in capillaries using 3‐cyanopropyldimethylchlorosilane (CPDCS) or n‐octyldimethylchlorosilane (ODCS) yielded hydrophobic surfaces with lowered surface free energies of 6.0 ± 0.3 or 0.2 ± 0.1 mJ m^?2, respectively, compared to 17 ± 1 mJ m^?2 for bare silica capillaries. HPBs were formed by subsequently fusing vesicles comprised of 1,2‐dilauroyl‐sn‐glycero‐3‐phosphocholine or 1,2‐dioleoyl‐sn‐glycero‐3‐phosphocholine to CPDCS‐ or ODCS‐modified capillaries. The resultant HPB coatings shielded the capillary surface and yielded reduced electroosmotic mobility (1.3–1.9 × 10^?4 cm² V^?1s^?1) compared to CPDCS‐ and ODCS‐modified or bare capillaries (3.6 ± 0.2 × 10^?4 cm² V^?1s^?1, 4.8 ± 0.4 × 10^?4 cm² V^?1s^?1, and 6.0 ± 0.2 × 10^?4 cm² V^?1s^?1, respectively), with increased stability compared to phospholipid bilayer coatings. HPB‐coated capillaries yielded reproducible protein migration times (RSD ≤ 3.6%, n ≥ 6) with separation efficiencies as high as 200 000 plates/m.     

Refined inequalities on graded Lie groups

We construct a Littlewood–Paley decomposition associated to a Rockland operator on graded Lie groups, which allows us to deduce refined Gagliardo–Nirenberg, Sobolev and Hardy inequalities.