Polyethylene/Poly(Butyl Methacrylate-co-Styrene) Copolymers Interpenetrating-Like Networks. I. Influence of the Copolymer Composition on Interpenetrating Polymer Network Properties

Abstract

IPN-like systems, consisting of low-density polyethylene (PE) and poly[butyl methacrylate (BMA)-co-styrene (S)] copolymer networks, were prepared in situ by a procedure described in previous papers. The initial PE/copolymer molar ratio was kept equal to 1 for all samples. The initial molar BMA/S ratio of the copolymer was varied over a composition range from pure S to pure BMA in order to investigate its influence on IPN properties. The samples obtained were analyzed by DSC; WAXS; tensile mechanical, dynamic-mechanical, and impact tests; swelling in CCl₄; and by some optical and electronic observations. The materials, became more and more brittle after undergoing mechanical and impact tests, even in the rubbery state, with increasing copolymer BMA content. The morphology consisted of a two-phase system. Good optical properties were obtained for the transparent specimens at relatively high BMA molar contents in the copolymer (70–80% BMA). Reversible changes of the optical properties were induced by temperature variations. A matching/mismatching of the refractive indexes of PE and the copolymer was found to be the cause of the optical behavior of these materials. Work is in progress to improve the mechanical behavior of these systems.     

The definition of the molecular structure for potential anti-malaria agents by the Monte Carlo method

A series of 53 endochin analogs (4(1-H)-quinolone derivatives) with anti-malarial activity against the clinically relevant multidrug resistant malarial strain TM-90-C2B has been studied. The CORAL (http://www.insilico.eu/coral) software has been used as a tool to build up the quantitative structure–activity relationships (QSAR) for the anti-malaria activity. The QSAR models were calculated with the representation of the molecular structure by simplified molecular input-line entry system and by the molecular graph of atomic orbitals. The method for splitting data into the sub-training set, the calibration set, the test set, and the validation set is suggested. Three various splits were examined. Statistical quality of models for the validation sets (which are not involved in the building up models) is good. Structural indicators (alerts) for increase and decrease of the anti-malaria activity are defined.     

Simultaneous determination of sixteen underivatized biogenic amines in human urine by HPLC-MS/MS

The broad group of biogenic amines includes polyamines and catecholamines, whose presence in human tissues and biological fluids can give important diagnostic information and act as marker of many pathologies. In particular, polyamines are involved in cancer cell growth while catecholamines act as neurotransmitters and hormones. Their simultaneous determination in biological tissues and fluids is therefore an important task. A high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method is presented here for the simultaneous determination in urine of 16 biogenic amines: adrenaline (epinephrine), agmatine, cadaverine, dopamine, histamine, 3-methoxytyramine, noradrenaline (norepinephrine), norephedrine, octopamine, 2-phenylethylamine, putrescine, serotonin, spermidine, spermine, tryptamine, and tyramine. The method does not require any derivatization step. To guarantee the maximum of sensitivity, the mass spectrometer works in selected reaction monitoring mode, monitoring for each analyte the two most intensive transitions. Method validation includes the evaluation of limits of detection (that range from 0.3 to 6.6 μg L^?1), limits of quantitation (that range from 1.0 to 21.9 μg L^?1), linearity range (three orders of magnitude), recovery, intra- and inter-day precision on both concentration, and retention time. Recovery (R) is shown not to depend on the analyte concentration: the average R percent ranges from 72.9 to 100.0 %. Particular attention is devoted to the matrix effect and the correlated phenomena of ion enhancement or suppression in mass spectrometry detection.

The effect of the intermolecular potential formulation on the state‐selected energy exchange rate coefficients in N2–N2 collisions

The rate coefficients for N₂–N₂ collision‐induced vibrational energy exchange (important for the enhancement of several modern innovative technologies) have been computed over a wide range of temperature. Potential energy surfaces based on different formulations of the intramolecular and intermolecular components of the interaction have been used to compute quasiclassically and semiclassically some vibrational to vibrational energy transfer rate coefficients. Related outcomes have been rationalized in terms of state‐to‐state probabilities and cross sections for quasi‐resonant transitions and deexcitations from the first excited vibrational level (for which experimental information are available). On this ground, it has been possible to spot critical differences on the vibrational energy exchange mechanisms supported by the different surfaces (mainly by their intermolecular components) in the low collision energy regime, though still effective for temperatures as high as 10,000 K. It was found, in particular, that the most recently proposed intermolecular potential becomes the most effective in promoting vibrational energy exchange near threshold temperatures and has a behavior opposite to the previously proposed one when varying the coupling of vibration with the other degrees of freedom. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A New Alkaliphilic Cold-Active Esterase from the Psychrophilic Marine Bacterium Rhodococcus sp.: Functional and Structural Studies and Biotechnological Potential

The special features of cold-adapted lipolytic biocatalysts have made their use possible in several industrial applications. In fact, cold-active enzymes are known to be able to catalyze reactions at low temperatures, avoiding side reactions taking place at higher temperatures and preserving the integrity of products. A lipolytic gene was isolated from the Arctic marine bacterium Rhodococcus sp. AW25M09 and expressed in Escherichia coli as inclusion bodies. The recombinant enzyme (hereafter called RhLip) showed interesting cold-active esterase activity. The refolded purified enzyme displayed optimal activity at 30 °C and was cold-active with retention of 50 % activity at 10 °C. It is worth noting that the optimal pH was 11, and the low relative activity below pH 10 revealed that RhLip was an alkaliphilic esterase. The enzyme was active toward short-chain p-nitrophenyl esters (C2–C6), displaying optimal activity with the butyrate (C4) ester. In addition, the enzyme revealed a good organic solvent and salt tolerance. These features make this an interesting enzyme for exploitation in some industrial applications.     

Code interoperability and standard data formats in quantum chemistry and quantum dynamics: The Q5/D5Cost data model

Code interoperability and the search for domain‐specific standard data formats represent critical issues in many areas of computational science. The advent of novel computing infrastructures such as computational grids and clouds make these issues even more urgent. The design and implementation of a common data format for quantum chemistry (QC) and quantum dynamics (QD) computer programs is discussed with reference to the research performed in the course of two Collaboration in Science and Technology Actions. The specific data models adopted, Q5Cost and D5Cost, are shown to work for a number of interoperating codes, regardless of the type and amount of information (small or large datasets) to be exchanged. The codes are either interfaced directly, or transfer data by means of wrappers; both types of data exchange are supported by the Q5/D5Cost library. Further, the exchange of data between QC and QD codes is addressed. As a proof of concept, the H + H₂ reaction is discussed. The proposed scheme is shown to provide an excellent basis for cooperative code development, even across domain boundaries. Moreover, the scheme presented is found to be useful also as a production tool in the grid distributed computing environment. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Light‐Driven Organocatalysis Using Inexpensive,Nontoxic Bi2O3 as the Photocatalyst

The development of enantioselective catalytic processes that make use of sunlight as the energy source and nontoxic, affordable materials as catalysts represents one of the new and rapidly evolving areas in chemical research. The direct asymmetric α‐alkylation of aldehydes with α‐bromocarbonyl compounds can be successfully achieved by combining bismuth‐based materials as low‐band‐gap photocatalysts with the second‐generation MacMillan imidazolidinone as the chiral catalyst and simulated sunlight as a low‐cost and clean energy source. This reaction also proceeded with high efficiency when the reaction vial was exposed to the morning sunlight on a clear September day in Tarragona, Spain.     

Virtual screening of integrase inhibitors by large scale binding free energy calculations: the SAMPL4 challenge

As part of the SAMPL4 blind challenge, filtered AutoDock Vina ligand docking predictions and large scale binding energy distribution analysis method binding free energy calculations have been applied to the virtual screening of a focused library of candidate binders to the LEDGF site of the HIV integrase protein. The computational protocol leveraged docking and high level atomistic models to improve enrichment. The enrichment factor of our blind predictions ranked best among all of the computational submissions, and second best overall. This work represents to our knowledge the first example of the application of an all-atom physics-based binding free energy model to large scale virtual screening. A total of 285 parallel Hamiltonian replica exchange molecular dynamics absolute protein-ligand binding free energy simulations were conducted starting from docked poses. The setup of the simulations was fully automated, calculations were distributed on multiple computing resources and were completed in a 6-weeks period. The accuracy of the docked poses and the inclusion of intramolecular strain and entropic losses in the binding free energy estimates were the major factors behind the success of the method. Lack of sufficient time and computing resources to investigate additional protonation states of the ligands was a major cause of mispredictions. The experiment demonstrated the applicability of binding free energy modeling to improve hit rates in challenging virtual screening of focused ligand libraries during lead optimization.     

Weierstrass Integrability of Complex Differential Equations

We characterize the complex differential equations of the form ■ where a_j(x) are meromorphic functions in the variable x for j = 0,..., n that admit either a Weierstrass first integral or a Weierstrass inverse integrating factor.