On the Microstructural Analysis of (Pseudo)Copolymers

The main theoretical problems encountered in the microstructural analysis of (pseudo)copolymers have been discussed. The theoretical framework for the application of Markovian models in this field has been established by arguments of information theory. As indicators of microstructural regularity, which are independent from models of polymerization kinetics, block lengths and redundancy estimates have been presented and discussed. Redundancy estimates are tightly connected to the informational entropy and can be obtained with minor effort from experimental data. Literature microstructural data of ethylene‐propylene copolymers and polypropylenes have been examined in order to give practical examples of the computation of the indicators, which are found to easily describe the main features of the samples examined.     

Highly Axial Magnetic Anisotropy in a N3O5 Dysprosium(III) Coordination Environment Generated by a Merocyanine Ligand

A spiropyran‐based switchable ligand isomerizes upon reaction with lanthanide(III) precursors to generate complexes with an unusual N₃O₅ coordination sphere. The air‐stable dysprosium(III) complex shows a hysteresis loop at 2 K and a very strong axial magnetic anisotropy generated by the merocyanine phenolate donor.     

Mild metal-free syn-stereoselective ring opening of activated epoxides and aziridines with aryl borates

A conceptually new, simple and practical method for the syn-nucleophilic displacement of aryl and vinyl epoxides and aryl aziridines with (substituted) phenols, using aryl borates as activating nucleophiles under neutral conditions, is reported.     

Time-dependent heat capacity of water-lysozyme solution

Summary We report here the first observation of the time-dependent heat capacity of water-lysozyme solution. The observed increase of heat capacity in time occurs independently of the lysozyme concentration and thepH value of the solvent. The time necessary to attain the heat capacity equilibrium value and the amplitude of the effect are not well reproducible; the former tends to increase with temperature, while the amplitude decreases and practically disappears about 35°C. Evolution of a spatial order of the proteins in water and/or of water molecules interacting with the proteins is considered as a possible explanation for the results. The phenomenon promises to be an important tool to study the role of water in biological organization and activity.     

Search for direct CP violation in nonleptonic decays of charged Xi and lambda hyperons

A search for direct CP violation in the nonleptonic decays of hyperons has been performed. In comparing the product of the decay parameters, alpha(Xi)alpha(Lambda), in terms of an asymmetry parameter, A(XiLambda), between hyperons and antihyperons in the charged Xi-->Lambdapi and Lambda-->ppi decay sequence, we found no evidence of direct CP violation. The parameter A(XiLambda) was measured to be 0.012+/-0.014.     

Nickel nanostructured materials from liquid phase photodeposition

Liquid Phase Photo-Deposition (LPPD) technique has been used to obtain both colloidal particles and thin films of metallic and chloride nickel from solutions of only precursor Ni(acac)₂ (acac=2,4-pentandionato). Metallic nickel was obtained from ethanol solutions by direct nickel(II) photoreduction at 254 nm and by acetone sensitised reaction at 300 nm. In this latter process the rate was higher than in the first one. NiCl₂ was formed from CCl₄ solution by a solvent-initiated reaction. TEM analysis, performed on colloidal particles of nickel, showed that their dimensions are in the range 2–4 nm. The films did not present carbon contamination and were characterized by AFM, XPS and GIXRD. Metallic films consisted of particles of 20–40 nm that are the result of the aggregation of smaller crystallites (4–5 nm). Larger agglomerations (around 200 nm) have been observed for NiCl₂ films.     

Upwind-biased FORCE schemes with applications to free-surface shallow flows

In this paper we develop numerical fluxes of the centred type for one-step schemes in conservative form for solving general systems of conservation laws in multiple-space dimensions on structured meshes. The proposed method is an extension of the multidimensional FORCE flux developed by Toro et al. (2009) [14]. Here we introduce upwind bias by modifying the shape of the staggered mesh of the original FORCE method. The upwind bias is evaluated using an estimate of the largest eigenvalue, which in any case is needed for selecting a time step. The resulting basic flux is first-order accurate and monotone. For the linear advection equation, the proposed UFORCE method reproduces exactly the upwind Godunov method. Extension to non-linear systems has been done empirically via the two-dimensional inviscid shallow water equations. Second order of accuracy in space and time on structured meshes is obtained in the framework of finite volume methods. The proposed method improves the accuracy of the solution for small Courant numbers and intermediate waves associated with linearly degenerate fields (contact discontinuities, shear waves and material interfaces). It achieves comparable accuracy to that of upwind methods with approximate Riemann solvers, though retaining the simplicity and efficiency of centred methods. The performance of the schemes is assessed on a suite of test problems for the two-dimensional shallow water equations.