Directed ortho-lithiation of unprotected diphenylphosphinic acids

Directed ortho lithiation of diphenylphosphinic acid and subsequent electrophilic trapping provides mono ortho-functionalized derivatives including enantiopure γ-aminophosphinic acids in moderate yields. Copper catalyzed coupling of the ortho anion leads to biphenyl-2,2′-diylbis(phenylphosphinic acid), a phosphorus analogue of biphenyl-2,2′-dicarboxylic acid. Preliminary studies of the metal-binding abilities of this O,O-chelating ligand towards a series of metal cations are included.     

Multiple Keys for a Single Lock: The Unusual Structural Plasticity of the Nucleotidyltransferase (4′)/Kanamycin Complex

The most common mode of bacterial resistance to aminoglycoside antibiotics is the enzyme‐catalysed chemical modification of the drug. Over the last two decades, significant efforts in medicinal chemistry have been focused on the design of non‐ inactivable antibiotics. Unfortunately, this strategy has met with limited success on account of the remarkably wide substrate specificity of aminoglycoside‐modifying enzymes. To understand the mechanisms behind substrate promiscuity, we have performed a comprehensive experimental and theoretical analysis of the molecular‐recognition processes that lead to antibiotic inactivation by Staphylococcus aureus nucleotidyltransferase 4′(ANT(4′)), a clinically relevant protein. According to our results, the ability of this enzyme to inactivate structurally diverse polycationic molecules relies on three specific features of the catalytic region. First, the dominant role of electrostatics in aminoglycoside recognition, in combination with the significant extension of the enzyme anionic regions, confers to the protein/antibiotic complex a highly dynamic character. The motion deduced for the bound antibiotic seem to be essential for the enzyme action and probably provide a mechanism to explore alternative drug inactivation modes. Second, the nucleotide recognition is exclusively mediated by the inorganic fragment. In fact, even inorganic triphosphate can be employed as a substrate. Third, ANT(4′) seems to be equipped with a duplicated basic catalyst that is able to promote drug inactivation through different reactive geometries. This particular combination of features explains the enzyme versatility and renders the design of non‐inactivable derivatives a challenging task.     

Black holes in massive gravity: quasi-normal modes of scalar perturbations

We have studied quasinormal modes of scalar perturbations of a black hole in massive gravity. The parameters of the theory, such as the mass of the black hole, the scalar charge of the black hole and the spherical harmonic index is varied to see how the corresponding quasinormal frequencies change. We have also studied the massive scalar field perturbations. Most of the work is done using WKB approach while sections are devoted to compute quasinormal modes via the unstable null geodesics approach and the Pöschl–Teller approximation. Comparisons are done with the Schwarzschild black hole.     

Time-dependent density functional theory molecular dynamics simulation of doubly charged uracil in gas phase

We use time-dependent density functional theory and Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics methods to investigate the fragmentation of doubly ionized uracil in gas phase. Different initial electronic excited states of the dication are obtained by removing electrons from different inner-shell orbitals of the neutral species. We show that shape-equivalent orbitals lead to very different fragmentation patterns revealing the importance of the intramolecular chemical environment. The results are in good agreement with ionion coincidence measurements of uracil collision with 100 keV protons.     

Laser ultrasonic receivers based on organic photorefractive polymer composites

We present two laser ultrasonic receivers based on organic photorefractive polymer composites with 2-[4-bis(2-methoxyethyl)aminobenzylidene]malononitrile (AODCST) or 2-dicyanomethylen-3-cyano-5,5-dimethyl-4-(4′-dihexylaminophenyl)-2,5-dihydrofuran nonlinear optical chromophores. Experimental results show sensitivities of the ultrasonic receivers of ~9.5 × 10^?8 nm (W/Hz)^0.5 for both composites, and a faster response time (~60 ms) for the AODCST-based laser ultrasonic receiver. We show that such LUS detectors are highly suitable for contactless thickness measurements of aluminum, steel sheets and defect detection with an accuracy of 100 μm.     

Consequences of magnetic aging for iron losses in electrical steels

Electrical steels, when submitted to operation, present continuous decrease of their magnetic properties, depending on the carbon content. This effect is attributed to the increase of the size of carbides, a process also known as coarsening or Ostwald Ripening. Loss separation can offer a better understanding of this phenomenon. Experimental results show that all effect of aging is inside the hysteresis loss component, with the excess losses unaffected. The carbon content in electrical steels should be less than 25 ppm to avoid magnetic aging.     

Densely-packed self-assembled monolayers on gold surfaces from a conformationally constrained helical hexapeptide

A novel hexapeptide was functionalized at the N-terminus by a lipoyl group for binding to gold substrates. Owing to the high content of α-aminoisobutyric acid residues, the peptide adopts a rigid helical conformation despite the shortness of its main chain. Binding of the peptide to gold was investigated by quartz crystal microbalance, cyclic voltammetry, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and scanning tunneling microscopy under ultra-high vacuum conditions. Scanning tunneling microscopy experiments revealed that the peculiar self-assembly properties of this short helical peptide determine the complex morphology of the monolayer, showing ‘stripes’, i.e. peptide aggregates horizontally layered on the gold surface, and ‘holes’, i.e. Au vacancy islands coated by the peptide monolayer.     

Application of vernier thinning techniques to segmented annular arrays

Due to the aperture periodicity, the inter-element spacing of two-dimensional squared arrays is maintained near lambda/2 in order to avoid grating lobes. This condition gives rise to severe problems derived from the huge number of array elements and from their little size that causes the signal to noise ratio to bring down. Vernier techniques have been proposed to lower the number of active elements, but the drastic reduction of the ultrasonic energy is still a great problem for the image contrast. In this work, vernier techniques for segmented annular (SA) arrays are theoretically studied. SA arrays produce lower grating lobes than squared arrays and, therefore, allow the element size to be increased beyond the lambda/2 constraint. Using larger elements, SA arrays have advantage to squared arrays because they have larger active area and smaller thinning order for the same complexity (number of channels) of the image system. Theoretical results of the vernier techniques applied to SA arrays in both radial and tangential directions are presented and compared with the equivalent squared array.