Effects of ferrocenyl group on refractive index of colloidal crystal system formed by polymer-grafted silica in organic solvent

Colloidal crystallization of copolymer-grafted silica containing ferrocenyl groups in organic solvents and effects of ferrocenyl groups on effective refractive index of colloidal crystal systems were investigated. Poly(ferrocenyl metharylate (FeMA)-co-methyl methacrylate (MMA)-grafted silica gave colloidal crystallization in dimethylformamide and acetonitrile. The colloidal crystals exhibited characteristic coloration due to cooperative effects of specific absorption at 400–500 nm by ferrocenyl group and transmission of 700–800-nm light through the crystals. It was observed that effective refractive index of colloidal crystals systems of poly(FeMA-co-MMA)-grafted silica was higher than that of poly(MMA)-grafted silica. Normalized effective refractive index of the system linearly increased with mole fraction of FeMA in grafted copolymer. However, poly(FeMA-block-MMA) did not bring effective increase of the index because of bias formation of ferrocenyl group on silica.     

Determination of paroxetine in serum treated with simple pretreatment by pre‐column high‐performance liquid chromatography using 4‐(5,6‐dimethoxy‐2‐phthalimidinyl)‐2‐methoxyphenylsulfonyl chloride as a fluorescent labeling reagent

The therapeutic drug monitoring of paroxetine could be used to optimize the pharmacological treatment of depressed patients. A simple and sensitive high‐performance liquid chromatography procedure was developed for the determination of paroxetine in serum. After simple pretreatment of serum (50 μL) with acetonitrile and o‐phthalaldehyde, paroxetine was derivatized with 4‐(5,6‐dimethoxy‐2‐phthalimidinyl)‐2‐methoxyphenylsulfonyl chloride at 70°C for 20 min in borate buffer (0.1 mol/L, pH 8.0) to produce a fluorescent product. The derivative was separated on a reversed‐phase column at 40°C for stepwise elution with (A) acetic acid (10 mmol/L) and (B) acetonitrile. The flow rate was 1.0 mL/min. The fluorescence intensity was monitored at excitation and emission wavelengths of 320 and 400 nm, respectively. The within‐day and day‐to‐day relative standard deviations were 3.0–3.4 and 2.7–8.3%, respectively. The detection limit of paroxetine was 8.3 fmol at a signal‐to‐noise ratio of 3. As the proposed method that only requires a small quantity of serum (50 μL) is simple, sensitive and reproducible, it would be useful for clinical and biochemical research as well as drug monitoring. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Error analysis for matrix eigenvalue algorithm based on the discrete hungry Toda equation

Based on the integrable discrete hungry Toda (dhToda) equation, the authors designed an algorithm for computing eigenvalues of a class of totally nonnegative matrices (Ann Mat Pura Appl, doi:10.1007/s10231-011-0231-0). This is named the dhToda algorithm, and can be regarded as an extension of the well-known qd algorithm. The shifted dhToda algorithm has been also designed by introducing the origin shift in order to accelerate the convergence. In this paper, we first propose the differential form of the shifted dhToda algorithm, by referring to that of the qds (dqds) algorithm. The number of subtractions is then reduced and the effect of cancellation in floating point arithmetic is minimized. Next, from the viewpoint of mixed error analysis, we investigate numerical stability of the proposed algorithm in floating point arithmetic. Based on this result, we give a relative perturbation bound for eigenvalues computed by the new algorithm. Thus it is verified that the eigenvalues computed by the proposed algorithm have high relative accuracy. Numerical examples agree with our error analysis for the algorithm.     

Surface potential switching by metal ion complexation/decomplexation using bipyridinethiolate monolayers on gold

Surface potential switching on gold(111) surfaces is induced by complexation/decomplexation reactions of a bipyridine (BP) derivative and palladium(II) chloride, as observed by Kelvin probe force microscopy (KFM). On the basis of the theoretical predictions, a 4-(5-phenylethynyl-2,2'-bipyridine-5'-yl-ethynyl)benzenethiol (PhBP) derivative was synthesized and used as an active monolayer to catch transition metal ions. By using the microcontact printing (CP) technique, micron-size patterned PhBP monolayers, which act as effective hosts to coordinate palladium(II) chloride, were prepared on gold(111) surfaces. The KFM signal decreases by complexation of the Pd(II) chloride in PhBP monolayers and is recovered by removal of Pd ions using an ethylenediamine solution, as confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. This process is reversible, indicating that the surface potential switching is realized by complexation/decomplexation of Pd(II). A CP PhBP monolayer, when it detects the target palladium ion, shows sensitivity for the picomolar level detection judged from surface potential changes in KFM measurements. The dipole moment estimated by the surface potentials is much smaller than the calculated value, indicating that mechanisms for the reduction of the surface dipole moment exist in real monolayers prepared by the CP method.     

Reaction of thioketones with propiolic acids

The reaction of adamantane-2-thione with propiolic acid afforded a novel type of cycloadduct, spiro[adamantane-2,2'-6'H-[1,3]-oxathiin]-6'-one (3a), in quantitative yield. The reaction of thiobenzophenone with propiolic acid gave 2,2-diphenyl-6'H-[1,3]-oxathiin]-6'-one and 4-phenyl-3-thia-3,4-dihydronaphthoic acid in 34% and 35% yields, respectively. The reaction might proceed through a concerted process, as confirmed by kinetics. The reaction of adamantane-2-thione with 2-butynoic acid or phenylpropiolic acid gave the corresponding adducts regioselectively. Interestingly, only one isomer was obtained by the reaction of thiofenchone with propiolic acid, suggesting that the reaction proceeded diastereospecifically. Oxidation of adducts by dimethyldioxirane or m-chloroperoxybenzoic acid gave the corresponding sulfoxides and sulfones. The sulfoxides were thermally decomposed to give disulfide or another type of 1,3-oxathiin-6-one.     

Behavior of polymer chains grafted from latex particles at soft interfaces

We have studied the behaviors of a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) chains anchored to polystyrene particles at air/water and oil/water interfaces to recognize the roles of oil molecules in the PMMA property at the interfaces. Through the comparison of π-A isotherms we found two aspects of unique structural and rheological characteristics observed in PMMA-grafted polystyrene latex (PSL-PMMA) monolayer system in common. (1) The π-A isotherms showed surface pressure increase at larger occupied area compared to the PSL-PMMA size in solution at three different types of interfaces in most cases. (2) Compressional modulus, C _s ^?1, obtained by π-A isotherm analysis for PSL-PMMA at interfaces, showed the tendency to decrease with molecular weight of PMMA. This is opposite to that of PMMA homopolymer at interfaces. The effect of oil molecules on PSL-PMMA system at interfaces are found both in the difference of occupied area and C _s ^?1. The occupied areas were larger for the isotherms at the oil/water interfaces than those at the air/water interface in most cases, which suggested the reduced attractive interactions between anchored polymers by oil molecules. On the other hand, C _s ^?1 of PMMA monolayers is strongly dependent on the constituents of the interface and the order of C _s ^?1 is air/water?>?decane/water?>?dibutyl ether/water interfaces. The difference between oil species was not explained only by PMMA/oil interaction in bulk, but we suggested that interfacial tension of oil/water interface affects the miscibility of oil molecules with PMMA to cause higher miscibility between PMMA and dibutyl ether at the oil/water interfaces.     

Reversed-phase ion-pair liquid chromatographic method for determination of reaction equilibria involving ionic species: exemplification of the method using ligand substitution reactions of ethylenediaminetetraacetatochromium(III) ion with acetate and phosphate ions

A reversed-phase ion-pair liquid chromatographic method is presented for the determination of reaction equilibria involving ionic species of the same charge sign as reactant and product compounds. It has been demonstrated that ion-exchange chromatography or reversed-phase ion-pair chromatography is a useful tool for the determination of equilibrium constants of chemical reactions involving ionic species such as metal complexation reactions. Previous work with these methods has been based on the assumption that the limiting retention factors of the reactant and product species are constant independent of concentration of the chemical species (X) in the mobile phase, which reacts with the analyte compound. However, when all the reactant and product species are ions of the same charge sign as that of the species X, it is virtually impossible to apply these methods to the equilibrium constant determination because the retention factors of both the reactant and product species may depend on the concentration of X. In this study, an alternative approach was developed that estimates the limiting retention factors of ionic species from the dependence of the retention factor on the ionic strength of the mobile phase. Ligand substitution reactions of ethylenediaminetetraacetatochromium(III) ion with acetate and phosphate ions were used as model reactions to test this method. The equilibrium constants determined by this method are in good agreement with those obtained by a UV-visible spectrophotometric method.     

On a shifted LR transformation derived from the discrete hungry Toda equation

The discrete hungry Toda (dhToda) equation is known as an integrable system which is derived from the study of the numbered box and ball system. In the authors’ paper (Fukuda et al., in Phys Lett A 375, 303–308, 2010), we associate the dhToda equation with a sequence of LR transformations for a totally nonnegative (TN) matrix, and then, in another paper (Fukuda et al. in Annal Math Pura Appl, 2011), based on the dhToda equation, we design an algorithm for computing the eigenvalues of the TN matrix. In this paper, in order to accelerate the convergence speed, we first introduce the shift of origin into the LR transformations associated with the dhToda equation, then derive a recursion formula for generating the shifted LR transformations.We next present a shift strategy for avoiding the breakdown of the shifted LR transformations. We finally clarify the asymptotic convergence and show that the sequence of TN matrices generated by the shifted LR transformations converges to a lower triangular matrix, exposing the eigenvalues of the original TN matrix. The asymptotic convergence is also verified through some numerical examples.