Makrocyclische Ionophore beruhend auf oligomeren Terephthaldiamiden mit von Gastmolekülen abhängiger Selektivität

Macrocyclic Oligolactams Based on Terephthalic Acid as Ionophores with Selectivity Depending on Included Guest Molecules Macrocyclic 20- to 60-membered oligolactam hosts exhibit ion selectivities in poly(vinyl chloride) membranes which depend on the ring size and on the substituents of the amide N-atoms. The selectivity may be changed by loading the macrocyclic host with CHCl₃ as guest molecule.     

Enantioselectivity in Ni(II) Schiff-base complexes derived from amino-acids and (S)-o-N-(N-benzylprolyl)aminobenzophenone: molecular structure of several chiral Ni(II) Schiff-base complexes, circular dichroism and molecular mechanics studies

Several Ni(II) complexes derived from (S)-o-N-(N-benzylprolyl)aminobenzophenone ((S)-BBP) and amino acids of general formula [Ni((S)-BBP-L-(or D-)-aa)] were prepared. The crystal and molecular structures of [Ni((S)-BBP-Gly)], [Ni((S)-BBP-L-Ser)] and [Ni((S)-BBP-L-aaIm)](aaIm =L-2-amino-3-(imidazol-1-yl)propanoate were determined by X-ray diffraction analysis. In the three complexes the nickel atoms display a square-planar coordination and the overall structure around the metal indicates that the entire Schiff-base ligands form quite rigid frameworks. Molecular mechanics calculations were carried out for complexes [Ni((S)-BBP-Gly)], [Ni((S)-BBP-Ser)] and [Ni((S)-BBP-aaIm)] containing either the L- or D-amino acid forms, and the factors controlling the stereoselectivity are discussed. Several other [Ni((S)-BBP-L-aa)] complexes are also prepared and their circular dichroism spectra in solution and of the solids dispersed in KBr disks are measured and discussed. In agreement with other studies in solution with similar [Ni((S)-BBP-aa)] complexes, the Cotton effects for the bands with lambda(max) at 520--530 nm are positive when the amino acids have the L-configuration at the alpha-carbon. The same is observed in this work for the solid-state CD spectra of all compounds.     

DNA-templated catalysis using a metal-cleavable linker

Catalytic release of carboxylates from their 8-hydroxyquinoline esters by Cu(II) complexes, both attached to peptide nucleic acid strands, is triggered by complementary DNA.     

Feasibility of probing boundary morphology of structured materials by 2D NMR q-space imaging

It is well known that one-dimensional (1D) q-space imaging allows retrieval of structural information at cellular resolution. Here we demonstrate by simulation that boundary morphology of structured materials can be derived from 2D q-space mapping. Based on a finite-difference model for restricted diffusion, 2D q-space maps obtained from water diffusion inside apertures at various levels of asperity were simulated. The results indicate that the observed ring patterns (diffraction minima) reveal the boundary profiles of the apertures but become blurred in the case of significant variation in aperture size. For uniform size distribution of apertures, a quantitative measure of surface roughness can be established by means of spatial autocorrelation analysis. The results suggest that 2D q-space imaging may allow probing of the boundary morphology of structured materials and possibly biological cells.     

Multiresolution Analysis and Radon Measures on a Locally Compact Abelian Group

A multiresolution analysis is defined in a class of locally compact abelian groups G. It is shown that the spaces of integrable functions and the complex Radon measures M(G) admit a simple characterization in terms of this multiresolution analysis.     

Identifying the underlying structure and dynamic interactions in a voting network

We analyse the structure and behaviour of a specific voting network using a dynamic structure-based methodology which draws on Q-Analysis and social network theory. Our empirical focus is on the Eurovision Song Contest over a period of 20 years. For a multicultural contest of this kind, one of the key questions is how the quality of a song is judged and how voting groups emerge. We investigate structures that may identify the winner based purely on the topology of the network. This provides a basic framework to identify what the characteristics associated with becoming a winner are, and may help to establish a homogenous criterion for subjective measures such as quality. Further, we measure the importance of voting cliques, and present a dynamic model based on a changing multidimensional measure of connectivity in order to reveal the formation of emerging community structure within the contest. Finally, we study the dynamic behaviour exhibited by the network in order to understand the clustering of voting preferences and the relationship between local and global properties.     

Die Millon'sche Reaktion des Harns und ihre Beeinflussung durch Zufuhr von Tyrosin

Zusammenfassung Es werden einige Versuche an Kaninchen und Menschen über die Millon'sche Reaktion des Harns mitgeteilt. Ihre Intensität steigt an, wenn Tyrosin zugeführt wird, und zwar erheblich mehr nach dl-Tyrosin als nach l-Tyrosin. Ein Teil der Millon-Substanzen ist in Äther löslich, der ebenfalls nach der razemisierten stärker zunimmt als der nach der natürlichen Aminosäure.     

Sensitivity analysis and uncertainty calculation for dispersion corrected density functional theory

The precision of binding energies and distances computed with dispersion-corrected density functional theory (DFT-D) is investigated by propagation of uncertainties, yielding relative uncertainties of several percent. Sensitivity analysis is used to calculate the geometry-dependent relative importance of each input parameter for the dispersion correction. While DFT-Ds are exact at asymptotically large distances, their damping functions are shown to play a significant role in binding geometries. This is demonstrated in detail for the interlayer binding of graphite. The techniques presented allow practitioners to quickly compute error bars and to get an a posteriori estimate about the transferability of their results. They can also aid the development of future dispersion corrections.     

Analysis of volatile organic compounds in fuel oil by headspace GC-MS

Fuel oils are mostly used in marine applications and in power plants. They are known to contain hazardous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are of health and environmental importance. Chlorinated compounds, phenolic compounds, styrenes, indene, dicyclopentadiene, dihydrodicyclopentadiene, cumene, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes are some of the VOCs that have found their way into fuel oil through various streams during bunkering operation. Chromatographic analysis of VOCs in the presence of complex matrices in fuel oil is one of the major challenges encountered when dealing with products of that nature. An analytical procedure using automated static headspace gas chromatography–mass spectrometry was developed for the analysis of these compounds in fuel oil. Styrene D8 and phenol D6 were used as internal standards for quantitation. Phenol D6 was used for the quantitation of phenolic compounds, while styrene D8 was used for the quantitation of other target analytes. The influence of headspace parameters on analyte response such as temperature, incubation time and sample amount were all investigated and optimised. Linear calibration curves were achieved for all components with determination coefficients R² > 0.995. Repeatability, limit of detection, limit of quantitation and recovery were reported. The matrix effect in fuel oil was minimised by 1:1 dilution with mineral oil. This method was successfully applied to the analysis of commercial samples.