Synthesis of Highly Substituted γ‐Butyrolactones by a Gold‐Catalyzed Cascade Reaction of Benzyl Esters

Easily accessible benzylic esters of 3‐butynoic acids in a gold‐catalyzed cyclization/rearrangement cascade reaction provided 3‐propargyl γ‐butyrolactones with the alkene and the carbonyl group not being conjugated. Crossover experiments showed that the formation of the new C?C bond is an intermolecular process. Initially propargylic–benzylic esters were used, but alkyl‐substituted benzylic esters worked equally well. In the case of the propargylic–benzylic products, a simple treatment of the products with aluminum oxide initiated a twofold tautomerization to the allenyl‐substituted γ‐butyrolactones with conjugation of the carbonyl group, the olefin, and the allene. The synthetic sequence can be conducted stepwise or as a one‐pot cascade reaction with similar yields. Even in the presence of the gold catalyst the new allene remains intact.     

Quadrilateral surface meshes without self-intersecting dual cycles for hexahedral mesh generation

Several promising approaches for hexahedral mesh generation work as follows: Given a prescribed quadrilateral surface mesh they first build the combinatorial dual of the hexahedral mesh. This dual mesh is converted into the primal hexahedral mesh, and finally embedded and smoothed into the given domain. Two such approaches, the modified whisker weaving algorithm by Folwell and Mitchell, as well as a method proposed by the author, rely on an iterative elimination of certain dual cycles in the surface mesh. An intuitive interpretation of the latter method is that cycle eliminations correspond to complete sheets of hexahedra in the volume mesh.

Although these methods can be shown to work in principle, the quality of the generated meshes heavily relies on the dual cycle structure of the given surface mesh. In particular, it seems that difficulties in the hexahedral meshing process and poor mesh qualities are often due to self-intersecting dual cycles. Unfortunately, all previous work on quadrilateral surface mesh generation has focused on quality issues of the surface mesh alone but has disregarded its suitability for a high-quality extension to a three-dimensional mesh.

In this paper, we develop a new method to generate quadrilateral surface meshes without self-intersecting dual cycles. This method reuses previous b-matching problem formulations of the quadrilateral mesh refinement problem. The key insight is that the b-matching solution can be decomposed into a collection of simple cycles and paths of multiplicity two, and that these cycles and paths can be consistently embedded into the dual surface mesh.

A second tool uses recursive splitting of components into simpler subcomponents by insertion of internal two-manifolds. We show that such a two-manifold can be meshed with quadrilaterals such that the induced dual cycle structure of each subcomponent is free of self-intersections if the original component satisfies this property. Experiments show that we can achieve hexahedral meshes with a good quality.     

Ueber die Bestimmung des sauren weinsauren Kaliums in den Rohweinsteinen und der Weinhefe

Ohne ZusammenfassungNieder-Ingelheim, 3. Mai 1885.     

A posteriori error estimates for a time discrete scheme for a phase-field system of Penrose-Fife type

A time discrete scheme is used to approximate the solution toa phase field system of Penrose–Fife type with a non-conservedorder parameter. An a posteriori error estimate is presentedthat allows the estimation of the difference between continuousand semidiscrete solutions by quantities that can be calculatedfrom the approximation and given data.     

Semi-parametric estimation of covariate effects using the positive stable frailty model

Many biological and medical studies have as a response of interest the time to occurrence of some event, such as the occurrence of a particular symptom or disease, remission, relapse, death due to some specific disease, or simply death. In this paper we study the problem of assessing the effect of potential risk factors on the outcome event of interest through a parametric or semi-parametric frailty model where the lifetimes have a reason to be considered dependent. This dependence may arise because of multiple endpoints within the same individual or because, when studying a single endpoint, there are natural groupings between study subjects. The objective of this paper is to extend both parametric and semi-parametric approaches to regression analysis in which the lifetimes of individuals in a group are effected by the same random frailty which follows a positive stable distribution. Some comparisons of the properties of this frailty distribution with other frailty distributions are made and an example which assesses the effect of a treatment in a litter-matched tumorigenesis study is presented.     

Current correlators to all orders in the quark masses

The contributions to the coefficient functions of the quark and the mixed quark-gluon condensate to mesonic correlators are calculated for the first time to all orders in the quark masses, and to lowest order in the strong coupling constant. Existing results on the coefficient functions of the unit operator and the gluon condensate are reviewed. The proper factorization of short- and long-distance contributions in the operator product expansion is discussed in detail. It is found that to accomplish this task rigorously the operator product expansion has to be performed in terms ofnon-normal-ordered condensates. The resulting coefficient functions are improved with the help of the renormalization group. The scale invariant combination of dimension 5 operators, including mixing with the mass operator, which is needed for the renormalization group improvement, is calculated in the leading order.Supported by the German Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie, under the contract 06 TM 761