Mechanism of the acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of N-acylsulfamates

The kinetics of hydrolysis of a series of N-acylsulfamate esters p-XC₆H₄OSO₂NHCOR as models for more complex, biologically important compounds has been examined. Structure-reactivity, solvent-reactivity, thermodynamic data, etc. support a bimolecular mechanism involving water in the transition state (TS).     

Action de O- et N-nucléophiles sur les sels de phényl-3 benzopyrylium-1

3-Phenyl-1-benzopyrylium percholorates 1a, 1i react exculusively at C-2 with ethanol and isopropyl alcohol, affording mixed acetals 2a, 3a, 3i . Aqueous ammonia gives symmetrical secondary amines 4a, 4b or bis(3-phenyl-2H-1-benzopyran-2-yl)amines, while with aqueous aliphatic amines (40%) bis-acetals 5a, 5b or 2,2′-oxy-bis(3-phenyl-2H-1-benzopyrans) are characterized. In some other acidic conditions, 5a and 5b are also obtained.     

Hydrosilylation Reactions Catalyzed by Rhenium

Hydrosilylation is an important process, not only in the silicon industry to produce silicon polymers, but also in fine chemistry. In this review, the development of rhenium-based catalysts for the hydrosilylation of unsaturated bonds in carbonyl-, cyano-, nitro-, carboxylic acid derivatives and alkenes is summarized. Mechanisms of rhenium-catalyzed hydrosilylation are discussed.     

An improved palladium(II)-catalyzed method for the synthesis of aryl ketones from aryl carboxylic acids and organonitriles

A palladium(II)-catalyzed decarboxylative protocol for the synthesis of aryl ketones has been developed. The addition of TFA was shown to improve the reaction yield and employing THF as solvent enabled the use of solid nitriles and in only a small excess. Using this method, five different benzoic acids reacted with a wide range of nitriles to produce 29 diverse (hetero)aryl ketone derivatives in up to 94% yield.     

Self-propelled droplets

Self-propelled droplets are a special kind of self-propelled matter that are easily fabricated by standard microfluidic tools and locomote for a certain time without external sources of energy. The typical driving mechanism is a Marangoni flow due to gradients in the interfacial energy on the droplet interface. In this article we review the hydrodynamic prerequisites for self-sustained locomotion and present two examples to realize those conditions for emulsion droplets, i.e. droplets stabilized by a surfactant layer in a surrounding immiscible liquid. One possibility to achieve self-propelled motion relies on chemical reactions affecting the surface active properties of the surfactant molecules. The other relies on micellar solubilization of the droplet phase into the surrounding liquid phase. Remarkable cruising ranges can be achieved in both cases and the relative insensitivity to their own ‘exhausts’ allows to additionally study collective phenomena.     

Frequency-selective quantitation of short-echo time 1H magnetic resonance spectra

Accurate and efficient filtering techniques are required to suppress large nuisance components present in short-echo time magnetic resonance (MR) spectra. This paper discusses two powerful filtering techniques used in long-echo time MR spectral quantitation, the maximum-phase FIR filter (MP-FIR) and the Hankel-Lanczos Singular Value Decomposition with Partial ReOrthogonalization (HLSVD-PRO), and shows that they can be applied to their more complex short-echo time spectral counterparts. Both filters are validated and compared through extensive simulations. Their properties are discussed. In particular, the capability of MP-FIR for dealing with macromolecular components is emphasized. Although this property does not make a large difference for long-echo time MR spectra, it can be important when quantifying short-echo time spectra.     

Fast reproducible identification and large-scale databasing of individual functional cognitive networks

Background  

Although cognitive processes such as reading and calculation are associated with reproducible cerebral networks, inter-individual variability is considerable. Understanding the origins of this variability will require the elaboration of large multimodal databases compiling behavioral, anatomical, genetic and functional neuroimaging data over hundreds of subjects. With this goal in mind, we designed a simple and fast acquisition procedure based on a 5-minute functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) sequence that can be run as easily and as systematically as an anatomical scan, and is therefore used in every subject undergoing fMRI in our laboratory. This protocol captures the cerebral bases of auditory and visual perception, motor actions, reading, language comprehension and mental calculation at an individual level.     

A Fresh Variational-Analysis Look at the Positive Semidefinite Matrices World

Engineering sciences and applications of mathematics show unambiguously that positive semidefiniteness of matrices is the most important generalization of non-negative real numbers. This notion of non-negativity for matrices has been well-studied in the literature; it has been the subject of review papers and entire chapters of books.     

Global Optimality Conditions in Maximizing a Convex Quadratic Function under Convex Quadratic Constraints

For the problem of maximizing a convex quadratic function under convex quadratic constraints, we derive conditions characterizing a globally optimal solution. The method consists in exploiting the global optimality conditions, expressed in terms of -subdifferentials of convex functions and -normal directions, to convex sets. By specializing the problem of maximizing a convex function over a convex set, we find explicit conditions for optimality.