Hydrogen bonding and mechanical properties of thin films of polyether-based polyurethane-silica nanocomposites

Two series of thin films of polyether-based polyurethane-silica nanocomposites having hard segment content of 51% and 34% and different concentrations of SiO₂ nanoparticles (0, 0.5, 1.0 and 3.0 vol.%) have been prepared. Infrared linear dichroic (LDIR) ratio, mechanical and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements were performed in order to determine the influence of hydrogen bonding on their mechanical and thermal properties. The degree of phase separation (DPS) and orientational functions in dependence on strain were calculated from the polarized IR spectra. The presence of silica nanoparticles gives rise to significant differences in the mechanical (stress-strain) properties of the nanocomposites with regard to the pure polymer. The nanocomposite thin films with lower hard segment content (HSC) displayed decreased stiffness and tensile and increased elongation at break in comparison to the nanocomposites with higher HSC. There was no distinctive influence of nanoparticles on the glass transition temperatures of soft segments. Nanosilica significantly affected the melting behavior of the hard phase only in samples with higher HSC.     

Air-borne sound source characterization by patch impedance coupling approach

An approach of independent sound source characterization is discussed. The source is defined by its blocked sound pressure and surface impedance via a suitable enveloping surface. Both the blocked pressure and the impedance are made discrete using the patch averaging concept. The approach is adapted to numerical as well as experimental implementation. The characterization of a source by patches allows for acoustical sub-structuring, which in turn enables the prediction of the sound field created by a source coupled to an arbitrary environment. Numerical simulations are presented which demonstrate the validity of the approach.     

Crystallographic/experimental electron density characterizations and reactions with nucleophiles of beta-enaminonitriles possessing a pyrrolobenzazepine core

In connection with a total synthesis of cephalotaxine (1a), we have examined the addition of various nucleophilic reagents to [ABC] subunits 2 and 7 possessing a pyrrolobenzazepine core. In fact, this reaction implicates invariably the carbonyl group of 2. Regarding the reaction of 7 with nucleophiles, the most striking aspect is the complete lack of reactivity of the enaminonitrile moiety. For instance, the condensation of 7 with methylmagnesium bromide involves exclusively the cleavage of the dioxole ring, yielding regioisomers 9 and 10. With the aim of understanding the unexpected reactivity of 2 and 7 toward nucleophiles, crystallographic studies of 2 and 7 and an experimental electron density determination of 7 were carried out. The marked reactivity of the carbonyl group of 2 was interpreted by invoking the weakness of the amide resonance, due to a pronounced delocalization of the N(9) lone pair over the enaminonitrile moiety. The electron density study of 7 reveals this electron delocalization along the enaminonitrile fragment, highlighted and quantified through the bond geometries, topological indicators, and atomic charges, a phenomenon that is responsible for the failure of the addition of nucleophilic species.     

Evaluation of novel sample identification approach based on chromatographic fingerprint set correlation homogeneity analysis

Instead of usual rationale for chromatographic fingerprint based sample identification which relies upon visual inspection or principal component analysis of raw or aligned chromatograms novel nonparametric statistical measure of fingerprint set homogeneity is proposed. Randomization test is applied for significance analysis of fingerprint set homogeneity while average maximum crosscorrelation is used as a merit function. Chromatogram sets generated by random selection from standard and unknown sample chromatogram collections are compared with respect to merit function values with set of chromatograms that represents standard and/or unknown sample. In that instance fingerprint homogeneity significance is represented by the fraction of random chromatogram sets that have higher merit values than the standard and/or unknown sample sets. A set of peptide maps corresponding to different haemoglobin variants has been selected for evaluation of proposed test. This approach is compared to chromatogram alignment based on correlation optimized warping coupled with principal component or cluster analysis. Proposed method is simple i.e. straightforward sample identification procedure which reliability has been evaluated here. Impact of this approach on peptide mapping validation and system suitability analysis is discussed.     

Bond profiles for cuboctahedron and twist cuboctahedron

Using the information on the interatomic separations in a molecule, one can construct structural invariants that are the components of a molecular profile. The entries in the profile are derived by averaging different powers of the interatomic separations, suitably normalized so that the increasing powers do not dominate the sequence. Although only a few hundreds of structures have been so analyzed, no two different chemical structures were found to be characterized by the same sequences. A critical test for the conjecture that molecular profiles are unique is to consider structurally closely related systems that are very similar and have several similar properties. In this contribution we investigated the cuboctahedron and the accompanying polyhedron obtained by rotating half of the cuboctahedron against the other half, resulting in the so-called twist cutoctahedron. We show that even this pair of closely related structures has different profiles. We have also examined the generalized molecular profiles obtained by inserting n additional points along each edge of the polyhedra. The convergence of the profiles as n increases is discussed. It appears thus that these generalized molecular profiles, called line profiles or bond profiles, are likely to lead to a unique characterization of structures in which not only the geometry of atoms is recorded but also the geometry of the connectivity of the structure. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

On the structure of theta lifts of discrete series for dual pairs (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Sp</Emphasis>(<Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis>),<Emphasis Type="Italic">O</Emphasis>(<Emphasis Type="Italic">V</Emphasis>))

The purpose of this paper is to prove some fundamental results on the structure of theta lifts of discrete series.     

Magnetoresistance oscillations due to Zener tunneling and microwave radiation in a 2D electron gas in GaAs quantum well with AlAs/GaAs superlattices barriers

The effect of microwave radiation in the frequency range from 1.2 to 10 GHz on the magnetoresistance of a high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas has been studied in a GaAs quantum well with AlAs/GaAs superlattice barriers. It has been found that the microwave field induces magnetoresistance oscillations periodic in the reciprocal magnetic field (1/B). It has been shown that the period of these oscillations in the covered frequency range depends on the microwave radiation power.